Uni job application - essential criteria?

[Thickhead]

Hi all. I've just applied for an internal promotion at a university, in the team I already work in. A non academic role, 3 grades up.

There were 24(!) Essential criteria on the person spec! Most of them quite woolly, 'ability to (generic skill), 'commitment to (abstract concept)', etc. I managed to hit all of them easily except one, which I'm worried about. It was about concrete experience which I don't have, but I tried to blag with something similar and the transferable skills it's given me.

I had all the desirable criteria (a further 8) except one.

My application ended up being 5 pages long though!!

Does anyone know how university applications are scored? Will I not be in with a chance because I didn't have one of the essential criteria? Will HR sift them rather than my boss? Do they assign points for each criteria and do it that way? I'm worrying I've overreached and made a fool of myself to my boss...

It might not be the same in all universities but where I work the HR team don't get involved in sifting, all applications are passed to the hiring manager.

It's then up to that person to determine who should be interviewed. That decision should of course be based on the person description but it's up to the hiring manager to decide how flexibly that is interpreted.

Good luck!

Ah thank you @bellinique. That's helpful. Will keep my fingers crossed my boss is a bit flexible in his interpretation!!

I can’t remember the figures, but there are definitely studies which have shown men tend to overwhelming apply to roles when they don’t meet all the essential criteria compared to women (assuming you are a woman) So I wouldn’t worry about looking foolish - more likely you’ll come across as go-getting and ambitious!

If you have listed how you meet each criteria in a separate sentence/paragraph in the order that they were listed in the job spec, then you will have made it v easy for them to give you all the credit you deserve and they will love you for ever! Nothing worse than hinting through pages of application to try to work out if someone does or doesn’t meet an essential criteria.

In my Uni we score Fully Met, Partially Met, Not Met, No Evidence. So you would get credit for them all.

Good luck!

@PerpetualStudent you know, that statistic was one of the reasons I applied even though I thought it might be beyond my reach! Am trying to think like a man...

@BeBesideTheSea that's exactly what I've done it all looks so long written down but it's good to know it will make their lives easier! And great to know about the scoring system; reassuring that there are shades of grey rather than a simple yes / no. Thanks for the help :-)

@BeBesideTheSea

If you have listed how you meet each criteria in a separate sentence/paragraph in the order that they were listed in the job spec, then you will have made it v easy for them to give you all the credit you deserve and they will love you for ever! Nothing worse than hinting through pages of application to try to work out if someone does or doesn’t meet an essential criteria.

In my Uni we score Fully Met, Partially Met, Not Met, No Evidence. So you would get credit for them all.

Good luck!

I agree - we are not a Uni but if someone applies to us and they have gone through the job description as thoroughly as you seem to have we'd be biting their hands off. Some days we're lucky if someone gets the job title and the industry right.😏

God I really hate the essential and desirable skills that universities insist on. And you have to demonstrate every single one. It seems a lot, especially for some of the salaries on offer, and yes it's very time consuming. I am trying to get into a university job ideally.

Thank you all - just an update to say that I got the job! :) the application was really tedious but thinking about how I hit all those criteria did set me up well for the (gruelling) interview.

Thanks for all your help!

Congratulations!! What a wonderful end to the year. Well done!