Application Preparation
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you should be able to:
- Use job boards or other means to find a job posting that you can use for your job package assignment.
- Conduct a self-inventory to evaluate your skills, achievements, and accomplishments.
- Analyze a company’s website or other sources to evaluate its goals and values and establish your connection to the company.
- Identify keywords in a job posting that you can highlight in your application materials to show you “speak their language”
Spending adequate time preparing to write your employment materials can save you many headaches in the drafting phase, i.e., the writing phase, where you create your materials. This chapter focuses on the pre-writing phase, which is when you should be gathering information and content to help generate those materials. In this chapter, you will find a potential job that you are eligible to apply for now, conduct a self-inventory of your skills and achievements, research your potential employer, and research the job you have selected. This may seem like a lot of work, but following these steps will increase your chances of standing out from the other applicants.
Finding a Job
Finding a suitable job opening can be a time-consuming process. Here are a few resources to get you started:
- Job boards: Search for jobs in your field by browsing sites like Indeed, CareerBuilder, Glassdoor, and Monster.
- Specialty job lists: look for lists of jobs in specific industries such as agriculture (U.S. Department of Agriculture), nonprofits (Idealist), or media (MediaBistro)
- Company, organization, and government websites: visit the employment section on websites of companies you admire; search federal, provincial, regional, and city websites for job postings.
- Your network: talk to classmates, friends, past employers, and professors, or visit LinkedIn to search for openings at companies in your network.
- Your college: Visit your college website and career services, and attend job fairs hosted at your college.
Once you have found a job, print and/or save a copy of the job posting or description. This document will help you tailor your application materials and interview preparation. Companies often delete job postings once they have received sufficient applicants, so you must save your copy.
Exercise #1: Finding a Job Posting
One of your assignments for this course is to apply the rhetorical theory you are learning to the job application process.
For this assignment, you will create a job package for a position you are qualified to apply for. The exercises in this chapter will get you started.
Let’s begin by actually finding some potential jobs! Use the website options listed above to identify a few positions for which you are qualified. Looking for internships in your field is a great place to start.
After gathering a few job postings, pick one you are most excited about. You will use this one for the job package assignment and the other exercises in this chapter.
Remember to print or save a copy of your chosen job posting. Once the posting is ready, proceed to the next section.
Conducting a Self-Inventory
Knowing what you have to offer as a potential employee is essential. As you work on your résumé, you may worry that you have nothing valuable to include, or you may fear that you are “bragging.” One way to get over these hurdles is to allocate time to a self-inventory. Brainstorm your skills, accomplishments, and knowledge by asking yourself the following questions:
- What did you accomplish at a past or current work, school, or volunteer position?
- What transferable skills have you learned?
- What would you tell a friend or family member you were proud of achieving there?
Start writing down skills and action verbs that describe your experiences and accomplishments, and don’t worry about putting them into a résumé format yet.
Exercise #2: Self-Inventory
Let’s take a moment to brainstorm some skills and action verbs that you can use in your job package assignment for this course. The best way to do this is to browse a skill list like the one below.
Complete the following steps:
- Scan the groupings of skills (Communication Skills, Creative Skills, Financial Skills, etc.) for action verbs related to your skills or work.
- Write down the categories of skills you have (again, Communication Skills, Creative Skills, Financial Skills, etc.) and the action verbs that describe your skills or work (e.g., analyzed, performed, calculated, advocated, etc.).
For example, you have probably already done several team projects in school. You could probably pick “Communication Skills” and “Collaboration.”
| Communication/ People Skills | Creative Skills | Management/ Leadership Skills | Helping Skills | Organizational Skills |
| Collaborated | Combined | Assigned | Aided | Arranged |
| Communicated | Created | Coordinated | Arranged | Categorized |
| Developed | Developed | Decided | Assisted | Distributed |
| Edited | Drew | Improved | Contributed | Organized |
| Incorporated | Illustrated | Led | Cooperated | Recorded |
| Proposed | Planned | Managed | Encouraged | Responded |
| Suggested | Revised | Oversaw | Helped | Updated |
| Synthesized | Shaped | Recommended | Motivated | Tracked |
| Translated | Crafted | Reviewed | Supported | Monitored |
| Facilitated | Conceived | Supervised | Prepared | Synthesized |
| Mediated | Established | Delegated | Bolstered | Adapted |
Table adapted from Creating Resumes I by Roads to Success, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
For additional action words for your job package, check out the University of Saskatchewan’s Career Centre’s materials on résumés and cover letters.
As you gather information about your work history and skills, double-check that your information is accurate and current. Gather dates of employment, training, lists of activities you have been involved in, academic awards, achievements, and special projects. If you’re having trouble remembering the information, ask former coworkers or managers about your significant contributions to the workplace.
Researching Your Potential Employer
As we’ve already discussed, you must adapt your job package materials to your potential employer because they are your rhetorical audience. Of course, to know your audience means you will need to take the time to conduct some research first. You must research your potential employer and the job you’re applying for. The easiest way to study a potential employer is to visit the company’s website. Look for an “About Us” page or a “Mission Statement,” and observe how the company describes its goals and values. Try to answer the following questions about the company or organization:
- Who does this company serve?
- Who are this company’s partners or competitors?
- What technologies would I use at this company?
- What is the tone of this company’s materials (formal, conservative, humorous, “cutting edge,” etc.)?
- How would you describe this company’s brand?
Here are a few more ways to research a company: search for its name on LinkedIn and other social media sites, browse for news articles about the company or press releases written by the company, speak with friends or colleagues who work for the company, or call the company to request an informational interview. This may seem like extra work, but this research can help you analyze the needs of your rhetorical audience and, as a result, better market yourself as a solution to those needs. As you research, look for ways to connect with the company:
- What do you admire about the company?
- Where do your values and interests overlap with those of the company?
- What makes this company a good fit for you?
Try to summarize your connection to the company in one sentence. Remember that your potential employer is also your rhetorical audience, and adapt your tone, examples, and level of technicality accordingly.
Exercise #3: Research the Employer
It’s time to research the company to which you are applying!
Using the company from your job posting, find the company’s “About Us” and/or “Mission Statement” page and try to answer the questions listed above. You may need to look at other parts of the website or online to find some answers. The job posting is also a great place to find this info.
Once you have your answers, summarize your connection to the company in one sentence. What about this company makes you want to work for them? What part of their goals and/or values do you most respond to? A sentence that explains this information would be great for the first paragraph of your cover letter!
Researching the Potential Job
To research the job itself, take advantage of the job posting you found. The job posting is your secret weapon; in this document, you are told what the employer is looking for in a candidate.
Exercise #4: Researching the Job
The job posting will give you insight into the rhetorical exigence that a company needs to solve. The solution is you! The best way to figure out how to solve that problem is by scouring the job posting and making connections to its words.
You want to get into a conversation with the document as you review it, so you will need a way to annotate it. Please print or copy and paste it into a document editor like Microsoft Word. Once you have the document ready, take the following steps:
- Highlight or underline your qualifications—skills, technologies you’ve used, etc.
- Note any past achievements related to any of the preferred qualifications. Ideally, try to use the achievements and experiences you generated from Exercise #2. For example, if the job description seeks a candidate who can diagnose and solve technical problems, write down an example of a specific time in which you did so in a professional or academic setting.
- Circle any keywords you might use in your materials. Using the same terms as a potential employer demonstrates to that employer that you can “speak their language.”
- Note any questions/uncertainties and any qualifications you do not have to decide what to highlight and what to downplay in your materials (as well as what you need to learn more about).
Any content you find through this process can be discussed in your application materials. You may not end up using all of the content you generate, but it’s essential to have options when trying to appeal to your rhetorical audience—the company.
Creating a word cloud from the job description might help if you’re having trouble identifying keywords. This can be accomplished by using a website like EdWordle. Word clouds present text as a visual display, reorganizing content so that the largest words appear most frequently in the analyzed text(see Figures 1 and 2 below). A word cloud can be a helpful visual tool to identify keywords to use in your résumé and cover letter. You might also be surprised to find that a “big word” (a commonly repeated keyword) is one that you would not automatically associate with the job. For example, Figure 1 below is generated from a job posting for a Children’s Museum Experience Facilitator position. What words stand out to you?
We can see in Figure 11.2.1 that some of the words are apparent terms we would expect to find in a children’s museum job description—museum, children, exhibits, playing, etc. However, “diversity” and “diverse” are also large terms. If you were applying for this job, you would now know to discuss your commitment to diversity and experience working with people from diverse backgrounds. Now you try. Figure 2, below, is a word cloud generated from a job posting by Nutrien for a summer student position targeting mechanical engineers. What words stand out to you?
Certain words like “Nutrien” and “Engineering” are no surprise. However, there are a few key words we can extract from this: words like communication, inclusion, analysis, and organization. After putting together this word cloud, you know a few areas and skills you should speak to if you apply for this position.
Exercise #5: Keyword Analysis
Generate a word cloud using your job posting. You can do this by using a website like EdWordle.
What words stand out to you? Are there any words you didn’t notice in Exercise #3? Try to identify at least 3-4 keywords that you will be able to speak to in your job application materials.
Key Takeaways
- Creating a job package can be a time-consuming process. However, you can make the process easier by engaging in some pre-writing activities.
- To find a job posting, you are not limited to using all-purpose job boards like Indeed. Some specialty job boards, such as Idealist, target specific job interests, while others, like companies, only post jobs on their own websites. Additionally, you can leverage your existing networks, which you already have access to, such as friends, family, and your college.
- Companies are your rhetorical audience. They want to know that you will align with their goals and values. You can learn about these by visiting the “Mission Statement” and/or “About Us” page on the company’s website or by searching the internet. Once you know this information, you should be able to summarize your connection to the company in a single sentence.
- You are the solution to a company’s rhetorical exigence. The best way to show this is by identifying keywords in the job posting and connecting those keywords to your skills, accomplishments, and achievements in your application materials.
Attribution
This chapter is adapted from “Technical Writing” by Allison Gross, Annemarie Hamlin, Billy Merck, Chris Rubio, Jodi Naas, Megan Savage, and Michele DeSilva (on Open Oregon). It is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
the first phase of the writing process where you gather information and content from sources to help generate materials in the drafting phase
the process of brainstorming your past accomplishments, skills, and achievements
a collection of documents that are used to apply for a position such as a cover letter and résumé
a document that summarizes your education, skills, talents, employment history, and experiences in a clear and concise format for potential employers
verbs found in job application materials that quickly identify a candidate's skills, achievements, and accomplishments
an audience that can take action to solve a problem and can be persuaded by the rhetor to take action
also known as an "application letter," this document is your opportunity to establish a connection with the company you are applying to. You will pick a few significant qualifications that make you a good fit for the position and go into depth about each one.
a "problem" that can be affected by human activity
words in a job posting that highlight skills, qualities, and values that are important to a company
allows the listener to form an opinion of what they heard and, if necessary, to begin developing a response.
