Employability

When applying for jobs and opportunities, it is important to show what kind of skills you can bring to the role and where possible, how you have applied these in the past.

You may need to both write and talk about these skills, so you will need to consider the audience, and tailor the style and information to suit the context.

Writing about your skills

When you apply for jobs you might fill in an application form or send a CV with a covering letter. You will be asked to write about your experiences, describe the skills you gained and how you can bring them to the role that you are interested in.

Make sure that you don’t just describe your experiences. Employers will often be looking for a high level of critical reflection. When talking about your experiences, you should articulate:

• what happened
• what your role was
• what you learned from this.

Job applications and covering letters require a different style than many of your module assignments. Pay the same attention to the job description as you do to your assessment criteria, and make sure you stick to any word count given.

Talking about your skills

If your job application is successful, you will be invited to an interview. During your interview, you will need to be able to talk about your skills.

It’s a good idea to think about how your skills would be useful to the role that you are applying for. Skills@Library asked several Leeds students to try to talk about some of the skills they have developed during their degree. Watch the results and find out how they could have enhanced their answers.

View video using Microsoft Stream (link opens in a new window, available for University members only)

You can find out more about job interviews on the Careers Centre website.