Giving "details" of work history

[George Broughton]

Hi all

Completing my first application and I was wondering what others do with the "details" section of a work history online form. Straight-to-the-point bullet-points of roles and responsibilities? A freer discussion of the skills the role has given you? Somewhere in between?

 

[Jessica Booker]

Hi all

Completing my first application and I was wondering what others do with the "details" section of a work history online form. Straight-to-the-point bullet-points of roles and responsibilities? A freer discussion of the skills the role has given you? Somewhere in between?

Depends on the nature of the rest of the application.

 

[Alice G]

Hi all

Completing my first application and I was wondering what others do with the "details" section of a work history online form. Straight-to-the-point bullet-points of roles and responsibilities? A freer discussion of the skills the role has given you? Somewhere in between?

I would advise against bullet points - on a CV this is generally ok for formatting purposes but I really wouldn't use them in an application based on the advice I have heard the past two cycles.

 

[George Broughton]

Depends on the nature of the rest of the application.

There are the usual 250-word questions -- "why this firm", "detail your interests", etc. but the work history section also gives you 150 words for "details".

 

[Jessica Booker]

It is somewhere in the middle.

As Alice said, bullet points might not be appropriate, but a “freer” discussion of the skills isn’t appropriate either.

Rather than roles and responsibilities, you need to try and provide more achievements and learnings.

you don’t need to claim skills (eg teamwork, analytical skills) - that will be obvious in most instances. Also providing straight forward/self explanatory details is a waste, eg vacation scheme example: “I worked with trainees and associates....” is a complete waste of word count.

Try and be much more specific in the things you did, and what you personally achieved with it. That will make your examples stand out and become less generic

 

[George Broughton]

It is somewhere in the middle.

As Alice said, bullet points might not be appropriate, but a “freer” discussion of the skills isn’t appropriate either.

Rather than roles and responsibilities, you need to try and provide more achievements and learnings.

you don’t need to claim skills (eg teamwork, analytical skills) - that will be obvious in most instances. Also providing straight forward/self explanatory details is a waste, eg vacation scheme example: “I worked with trainees and associates....” is a complete waste of word count.

Try and be much more specific in the things you did, and what you personally achieved with it. That will make your examples stand out and become less generic

Thanks Jessica -- very helpful.

 

[D]

Here is my practical advice:

1. Limit your experiences to 4 sections. Pick the most relevant. If you can, combine experiences (Open Days/Vac Schemes etc). The reason why I advocate this is that some firms limit their work experience section to 4 examples. Thus, you are doing yourself a favour for when you need to copy and paste these into other applications. Regarding copy/pasting, my strategy was to provide the exact same information every time, save for when I was writing about my open day experiences. I tended to offer some specific detail about the firm I was applying for that I learnt on their open day.

2. Limit your experience to 150 words. I say this for the same reason above. Some firms limit that section to 150 words. This will again allow you to copy from app to app. The bonus here is also that you get to keep your experiences concise which will assist the reviewer.


You will get lots of advice on this forum. Some may conflict with what I have said. My advice may not be the best, however, I can only pass down what I found personally successful in my own applications

Best of luck.

 

[Jessica Booker]

Although the above is a good approach for rolling out multiple applications, I’d advise against limiting your work experience to four entries if you are given the option to provide more, or combining entries in that instance too.

For significant experiences it also does not make sense to limit yourself to 150 words.