Supporting statement advice please

[Judyandherdreamofhorses]

The person spec has 11 points, all of which I meet. Is it essential to write the supporting statement very specifically (so state exactly which criteria I am demonstrating) or is it okay to write it as a paragraphed document. Do I make any sense?! I promise what I've written is better than this!

Not an expert, but have a few months of recent experience & read lots of advice.

For most jobs I think a bullet point approach in a 2 column table would be best:

• List one of their criterium: List in terse paragraph/phrases, examples of how you meet it.

and so on.

For jobs where writing itself is more important (imagine publishing, academia, report writing): then paragraphs might be better. Whatever you do, actually repeat back the exact phrases they list so they easily spot it.

Is this direct to company or thru a recruitment agency? I think it's especially tough to get past recruiters. You need to get all the keyword phrases right up at the top of the cv or cover letter. I am fairly sure that recruiters do not try to think or read between the lines ever. And otherwise they assume that everything you've written is a bald-assed lie.

Thanks for your advice. It's for a teaching job so I think I'm going to stick to the paragraph style as I consider writing style to be important. But I'll definitely go through it and make sure I've used their keywords and phrases.