Standing out from crowd - job app

[commuteyduty]

I recently applied for a job for which it was advised to follow the STAR method to show how you meet behaviours. As someone who has never done this before, (I’m looking for an career change and it’s not a thing in my current industry) and I wasn’t confident that I could ignore this advice, I did it, but… it just felt so false? I was unsuccessful, and when I read my application back through now, it doesn’t feel very ‘me’ and so in many ways I’m not surprised I didn’t make the cut. How do people get themselves across in a personal statement using this method? I imagine the person reading these statements all structured the same can barely distinguish between applications if they all follow the same format and use same key words etc.. so how do you make yourself stand out? Thing is, while I can’t prove I could do the job as it’s a career change, I know I could show that I can if someone gave me the chance, but it feels like if I structure applications the same as everyone else then I’ll always be behind those already with direct experience?

You need to tailor the letter to the job description,

for example

I am writing to apply for the position of ‘superhero’ at Clark Industries.

I believe I have the skills you are looking for.

Having 10 years recent experience coupled with the qualifications you are looking for I feel this role would be an excellent fit with my background.

I can fly and have shown this skill during my current position, when I demonstrated XYZ which resulted in ABC.

I can save lives, and feel this is a strength of mine, when I worked at JKL is was tasked with DEF which resulted in excellent customer feedback

Keep going - hit all the soft skill requirements.

They don’t, STAR is for the interview not the application. So in a competency based interview you would use the STAR structure to ensure that when they ask you for an example of a time when you have xxxxx, you answer ‘well I once had this situation where I had to xxxx, to address this I identified these key tasks that would enable me to achieve the objective, then I acted on it by doing xxxx and the result was that the objective was achieved within xxx amount of time/to this success measure’.

For the application or CV the priority is to address the key requirements of the Job and Person description they’ve provided.

When I’m reviewing CVs I have the job description in mind and it’s like a checklist. The job requires experience in:
Using MS Office suite
Prioritising a high volume of requests
Driving forward actions
Working with cross-functional groups
A person capable of organising their own workload
a person with 3 years experience in this particular sector
…….

so I want to see as many of those things as possible evidenced in the CV/application. Each one gets a tick, the CVs with the highest number of ticks get through to interview.

Some recruiters now use AI CV screening tools that only present them with CVs that have picked up a minimum number of ‘key words’. These will be words from the Job Description/Person spec, like ‘MS Office, Priority, prioritise, organisation, Self-starter, cross-functional, matrix, project management, action plan……’.

Your task when writing your application is to make it easy for the recruiter to see how well you match the JD.

I was specifically advised to use the STAR method for the personal statement for the job application, while referring back to the JD… it just felt contrived? Probably because I don’t have the experience in the sector, but I did ask before I applied if there was any point applying highlighting transferable skills rather than experience in the area as I’m looking at a career change, and they said I should still apply. There were hundreds of applicants for the the 1 post, so it was a long shot, but just trying to learn how to make it to the next stage at least.