How does this sound? (It is for a job in a school 15 hours a week as an admin assistant!) I have spent hours trying to make it sound ok - think I have to go throuhg and check grammer now!
Thank you for the opportunity to apply for this position, which I am now able to do as my youngest child is starting school in September 2009. It would be an ideal position allowing me to have a role outside of the home, which I feel would give me a great sense of self worth, as well as much needed mental stimulation, but still be there for my children when they are at home.
I pride myself on my organisation skills and being able to prioritise my workload by using my own initiative and believe that working as part of a team as well as having the ability to use my own initiative is a very important skill in any working environment. This was incredibly important at when I job shared. Mrs XXXX, my job share partner, and I rarely saw Mr **, as he travelled extensively, therefore we had to work on our own initiative whilst being sympathetic to the fact that we were sharing the work load, delegating between ourselves according to our strengths and weaknesses.
In terms of my technical ability, throughout my previous employment I have been fortunate enough to gain practical knowledge and experience of various software packages (Lotus Notes, Ami Pro, Quicktime, Powerpoint, Word, Excel etc). At XXXXXXXXXXX I had to collate huge pipeline reports using Excel for my managers to present in meetings to their superiors and to keep a record of which distressed debt opportunities had been agreed on and which had been declined and the reasons for such decisions. I was also in charge of the attendance and holiday application database, which was Excel based, helping to make sure holidays of senior members of staff in our department did not clash and we were adequately staffed at all times.
I would relish the challenge of applying my strong administrative and organisational experience to a role in an educational setting because it is a completely different environment to which I have previously worked in, one that as a parent I am particularly interested in. I would be very happy and willing to learn new procedures and guidelines and support the teaching staff and pupils and really develop the role into my own.