I'm attempting to apply to a civil service job and its one I really want so I'm desperate to get the application right.
When I've applied for CS jobs in the past I've had to fill out a form, writing about 250 words for each competency following the STAR format etc, which although it takes a while to get the wording perfect is at least fairly straightforward - I know what they want.
This time however, I have to complete a statement of suitability and a CV.
I have done my best to tailor my CV to highlight experience relevant to the competencies but I am really struggling to spell out how I meet the competencies in the statement.
I have to fit it all into 750 words!
So no room to go into much detail, especially as I have to use some of these words describing why I want the role, etc.
I was going to put a short bit about the challenges I see coming up for the department - is this appropriate?
I feel I must also briefly explain a career break of a couple of years - should I do this within the statement, or at the beginning of the CV? I assume it is better to admit that the break was to look after young children, than leave them wondering?
I'm in a right tangle about which bits to include in the cv, and which in the statement. There's not much room for detailed aspects of my previous roles in the statement, but when I put them in my cv dh thought it was too much detail for a cv (its just 2 pages, but fairly dense text organised into bullets). Part of the reason it looks quite dense is I've had one job since uni, so I've split this up into the different positions I held there almost as if they were different jobs, iyswim. But there's less white space than if I was listing several different jobs...
Can anyone with any experience help?
Any advice at all?