Online Application Forms

I notice that Cumbria County Council recently changed their online application form. The new version is not bad to use contentwise but there are some technical problems. You can only navigate it using the forward and back buttons on the webpage - there's no chance of skipping from section to section. So you need to press 'forward' or 'back' abvout three dozen times to review a completed form. It also seems to be hosted on a separate server. As our University server is very suspicious of rival server content anyway, it means our students can't access or print the pdf preview of a completed form when working in college.

These little local disturbances have jogged my memory to write a list of tips on completing online application forms. It's not a straightforward task as the first thing you need to know is that different online forms behave in different ways. But here goes:

Completing online application forms - seven key questions to ask yourself
1) Can you view or download the whole form before you start?

Not all forms allow you to, but it can be a big help when planning out your answers.

2) Does the form start with a few simple looking questions?

Beware of false friends. A wrong answer here may eliminate your application and block you from seeing the rest of the form.

3) Can you paste text into the form pages?

If the form allows this, you can prepare material and check it offline before copying it onto the form.

4) Is there an autosave facility?
Some forms do not save your work for you. If you haven't saved it yourself, you may have to retype everything after logging out or if the system crashes. Very annoying!

5) Is there a selection test built into the form?
This is increasingly common with online forms. Ideally, you should have an idea of the kind of test and how to approach it before you begin.

6) Is there a time limit?
Not very common, but some organisations see beating the time limit as part of the selection process.

7) Is there a space limit for the 'Supporting Comments' or similar section?
This is far more common. A page on your wordprocessor may not fit into one page on the form. There may be word limits, or even limits to the number of characters (sometimes including spaces!) you can use.

Last of all remember that all the usual rules for completing paper application forms still apply. Research the job just as thoroughly and don't resort to email or txtspeak. You can find online applications discussed more thoroughly on the University of Kent careers website and try out a (rather rough and ready) sample online form at www.selectsimulator.com

I Hate Macromedia Adobe Shockwave Flash...

or whatever you call it!

It all started when I decided - for reasons I cannot remember - to look up the Army careers website...

No, actually it had started to happen a while before then. Screen freezes right when I was right in the middle of working on something. No mouse, no keyboard, no programme manager. No way out but to reboot the damn thing, which was taking a good few minutes. And of course, if I had been writing, up to ten minutes of lost work that needed redoing.

A long and freezing road

I found out there's a thing called the 'Event Viewer' (Settings > Control Panel > Administrative Tools in Windows XP) that lists system errors and links to Windows help to explain them. I found out that the system was looking for a non-existent driver for my old Tiscali modem. After some tut-tutting, I altered the culpable registry entry following a helpful discussion board post.

Screen freezes became less frequent, but continued. I decided that I may have more registry problems, so I bought and used a proprietary registry cleaner, not having read the helpful discussion board post "Registry Cleaners may cause your system to become unstable".

My system speeded up considerably but still hung when I was browsing. By now I was starting to realise that screen freezes only still happened when videos were playing somewhwere on the screen. At first I blamed Firefox, which could fall over within seconds of starting up, but IE6 was just better, not perfect or anywhere near.

The penny was starting to drop. I updated Flash and there was an improvement. Much Flash content would play, but advanced content with both audio and video would crash sooner rather than later.

The day the Army Careers and the NHS Management Programme websites crashed in quick succession, I decided to call in Computerwoman.

I did some Uni modules with Computerwoman, since when she has become a bit of a techie. Her workroom is very poor 'feng shui', littered as it is with disembowelled machines and other bits of kit. She suspects, as I do, that a RAM upgrade could be helpful and kindly gives me one.

The Army Careers website starts with an over the top Flash presentation featuring a battlefield overflown by whirring helicopters. With a RAM upgrade, we can get the thing to load properly in IE7 but the first whirring helicopter crashes - the screen that is.

Computerwoman expresses some surprise as even Henry, her absolute worstest machine bought at Aldi has no problem displaying a tedious stream of whirring helicopters. She decides it might be malware.

This means we wait six hours while my machine is hotwired to a laptop containing Bullguard and then is rescanned with spybot We do find and exterminate some malware, but not the error. Computerwoman replaces the video card and reinstalls Windows, but neither make any difference. She decides that my machine must stay in her emergency ward for further treatment.

When I get it back from her she has tuned it up the best she can, but the most we can get is two whirring helicopters. She now thinks there may be an obscure software conflict and I think she's probably right.

Why I hate Macromedia Shockwave Adobe etc

The reason I'm telling you all this is to show what a trouble the malfunctioning of Flash on my machine has caused - literally days of work without much result.

I've never been much of a fan ever since Flash presentations first started getting used by some sites as a prelude to opening the main pages. The presentations were, well, flashy but low on content and most people just skipped them.

But my real grudge against Flash is that it does not tell you what's going on:

• It does not tell you that it's going to crash your browser, losing all your uncompleted work and open pages. No chance of an "Internet Explorer/Firefox has encountered a problem and needs to close" type message.
  
  
• It does not tell you when a new version of Flashplayer becomes available, even though an update could considerably improve performance.

Adobe can manage this pretty effectively with Acrobat Reader, so why not with Flashplayer?

• It does not tell you that you may need to tweak other parts of your software setup to get optimum results.
  

It was only when I started delving round the Adobe site that I found out that I might need to update other software, or even that there are separate versions of Flashplayer for Internet Explorer and Firefox. Again there are many software downloads that can tell you they need another update to run successfully, so why not Flash?

• Web designers should provide alternative content to Flash but often don't and do not tell you that they haven't, so that all you get is a blank space on your screen.
  

Of course that's what blind people are getting treated to all the time. Two cheers for W3C! In many cases, like the Army Careers website all you get is an invitation to download Flashplayer, which at least alerts you that you are missing some content.

Why do have to have this Flash stuff anyway? An animated gif or a more standard video technique will usually do the job without the instability. After all the tweaks I've made to my set up it still won't work all the time and I don't see why I should buy another machine (complete with Vista, but that's another story) to resolve one obscure problem.

Surely it couldn't be that Flash is just some sort of status symbol amongs the web design fraternity?...

What to do if it happens to you

I don't think I'm alone in having problems with Flash. A friend of mine recently sent out copies of her first article for "The Naval Architect" - a geat read if you're into marine technicalities. The trouble was it was in FlashBook, an electronic book format that crashed Firefox when I opened page 2. In fact so many people had problems with the format that she had to send it out again in Word.

Now I'm no expert on Flash technicalities, but here's my simple three step guide to living with Flash:-

1) Turn it off. Set your browser to disable Flash using Tools > Internet Options in IE Options > Manage Add ons > Plugins in Firefox. On the whole you won't miss much and you can always switch it on again if you really need it, having prepared that you may be about for yet another freeze.

2) If you've got to use it, take a look at the Adobe website to make sure you've got the latest version and check out what other software you may need. I ended up downloading Quicktime Player and a thing called Shockwave Director (?). Why did I need them? - dunno, they didn't tell me. Did they make a difference - might well have, it's hard to be sure.

3) If like me you are working on Word documents while you are browsing, set them to autosave every minute (Tools > Options > Save). Then you get a recovered version of your file with virtually nothing missing after the reboot.

After following my own tips, running antivirus and malware scans and deleting temporary internet files, I can announce that I actually managed to view an endless stream of whirring helicopters on the Army Careers website in Firefox last week ...until I turned the sound on.

Colin Taylor is a careers adviser and freelance writer who has been publishing careers and employment related material for over five years. Find out more about him at http://www.coltext.com

CV or Resume – Which to use?

Basically it depends which side of the Atlantic you are on – even though both words actually originated from Europe.

Back in the USA…

There is some difference between them in the US. At only one to two sides of A4, a resume tends to be shorter than a CV, which can take up two or three sides of A4 and even longer in some circumstances.

The resume saves space by omitting some of the headings you’d expect to see in a UK CV, such as ‘References’ and ‘Hobbies and Interests’, while ‘Education’ is often restricted to last High School or College. Often they use small fonts with limited white space, giving a rather cramped impression to an outsider.

There is also a difference in the target audience in America. Resumes tend to be used when applying for commercial positions in the private sector. CV’s are more likely to be used for academic and public sector positions that require high levels of education. The structure is fundamentally the same as a resume but with more detail on educational and professional attainments.

CV in the UK…and Europe

In the UK and generally in Europe, the term CV dominates and can effectively be regarded as the same as a resume. BUT the structure of the UK CV isn’t exactly the same as either of its US counterparts:

· Two sides of A4 is a generally accepted rule.

There are exceptions when applying to very high level posts, or academic jobs that require an account of publications or research undertaken

· References are always included, although ‘Available on request’ is regarded as acceptable.

· Hobbies and Interests and at least your last Secondary School are usually mentioned as well as post-school education.

Vive la difference!

CV conventions still vary a lot from country to country. In India photographs are still required for some occupations and many applicants in mainland Europe still use them. In Italy, CV’s must contain a standard sentence for data protection purposes and in Germany ‘Marital Status’ remains a must and some organisations still prefer an old-fashioned ‘essay’ format.

Oh!… and stay away from the so-called Euro CV promoted by the European Union. It’s just a mish-mash of all the different approaches that won’t cut it with any but the most Brussels minded employers.

Now read the really interesting bit..

Should I pay for a CV or resume?

What you really need to know is that the internet is full of FREE information on the right way to write a CV or resume where you live. FREE advice on your drafts is available from many state-run careers advisory services. That means you should NEVER NEED TO PAY someone else to write a CV or resume for you – the internet and a wordprocessor with spellchecker are all you need to get started.

Colin Taylor is a careers adviser and freelance writer who has been publishing careers and employment related material for over five years. Find out more about him at http://www.coltext.com

Covering Letters – A Step By Step Guide

Avoid the confusion!

When some people say ‘covering letter’, they don’t mean a covering letter at all, but a full letter of application.

A two or three page letter of application is a detailed piece of persuasive writing to convince an employer that you’re worth considering for the job, but it isn’t a covering letter.

A covering letter (U.S. ‘cover letter’) is a brief one-pager introducing another document that sits underneath it, most commonly your CV. Many employers will use it to decide whether to read your CV or file both quietly under W.P.B. (Waste Paper Bin). So covering letters are important.

When are covering letters REALLY important?

There are three situations when you use a covering letter:
· When returning an application form for an advertised post
· With a CV in response to an advertised post

In these two cases the covering letter may NOT be so important. All that’s required is a short couple of lines saying ‘Please find enclosed…’ and ‘I look forward to…’. It might not do any harm to add some detail but it probably won’t make much difference. The bottom line is that they’ve asked you to apply –- the door is partially open.

· With a CV when no post has been advertised

This is the crunch situation. CV plus covering letter is the main way of getting into companies who aren’t openly recruiting. But an employer has no reasons to be interested in your CV unless you provide some.

Getting Started – sample format

Here is what your letter’s going to look like:

Name,
Address,
Phone No.
Email

date

Dear ,

FOUR paragraphs of text

Yours sincerely,

DO make sure you get the name of the person to write to. Research shows that ‘Dear Sir/Madam’ is a turn off.

Now you’ve got started, each step is a paragraph of your letter… As you go through them keep to the point and don’t use flowery language.

Para 1

Write a short paragraph saying what (or who) has motivated you to write. Say what kind of work or placement you are looking for. The ‘who’ can be vital. If someone has suggested you apply, it amounts to a recommendation.

Para 2

Start a fresh paragraph explaining why you want to work there and the contribution you can offer. Base this on whatever you can find out about them. The key is to make what you say seem unique –- something they might need that not everyone else can offer.

Para 3

Here you refer to your attached CV, emphasising the two or three points that you think will interest the employer.

Para 4

Finish by saying that you would be pleased to attend an interview and (if appropriate) when. If it feels right, you can say instead that you will ring them on a specific date to ask for feedback on your CV.

Then all you need to do is check and sign your letter.

Colin Taylor
10/11/08

www.coltext.com

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