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[mgonza5]

Since discovering this section of the forum I've been poring over the wonderful and helpful advice that people with knowledge of UK institutions have kindly been sharing. I have a rather specific question to ask about one particular application which seems a little different from others (even by UK standards).

The application is submitted online by filling a form. One of the items on the form provides the following instructions:

Please use the space below to tell us about your skills and experience and how they satisfy each of the criteria in the person specification.

-> So far, so good, sounds like a standard cover letter

You might find it helpful to use the person specification criteria as headings to structure this section.

-> Does this mean I should provide a document with bullets and subheadings in place of the cover letter?

For teaching or research posts, applicants should also upload a separate document or CV into the "Document Upload" section, setting out teaching and research interests and publications (including the title, reference and date of each publication).

-> This part confuses me. Would they like a CV, a document or both? If I were to supplement my CV with such a document, would it not be with the information that I already intend to include in a cover letter?

It seems to me that all they want could be address in the form of a longish (they give an upper limit of 7500 characters) traditional cover letter and am inclined to do that. My question is, in writing this in a cover letter form will I be irritating the SC and making their job more difficult? Or, if I respond with a bullet-type statement will I be making a mistake by not knowing (as perhaps I am expected to know) that this form is also used for other types of positions in which that kind of format is more useful.

Sorry this turned out SO long, I just wanted to be thorough since this is kind of a dream job for me. Any and all insight would be hugely appreciated!

[scotia]

You might find it helpful to use the person specification criteria as headings to structure this section.

-> Does this mean I should provide a document with bullets and subheadings in place of the cover letter?

The person specification is very important in UK applications. When we short-list for interview we use the person specification to guide the process: it sounds as though the department you are applying to is trying to do is to make it easy to recognise which candidates meet the essential criteria (unless you do, you are unlikely to be short-listed) and then who matches the desirable criteria. This is much easier to do if the candidate provides a structured document that clearly addresses the criteria. This document is much more important than the covering letter, which in the UK would typically be no longer than one page.

For teaching or research posts, applicants should also upload a separate document or CV into the "Document Upload" section, setting out teaching and research interests and publications (including the title, reference and date of each publication).

-> This part confuses me. Would they like a CV, a document or both? If I were to supplement my CV with such a document, would it not be with the information that I already intend to include in a cover letter?

First, see the above comment on the covering letter. If your CV covers everything they describe, that is what they are looking for. If not, I would suggest adjusting your CV so that it includes your teaching and research interests (I have a paragraph at the start of each section that describes my interests).

UK applications typically contain less material than US applications. A typical UK application might include an application form (if there is one), a CV, and maybe a covering letter. Some people provide covering letters, but its absence would not disqualify you from the pool of any search I have been involved in (at Russell Group and other universities), and some electronic applications have no provision for a covering letter. If you provide lots of additional material that is not requested it is likely to be ignored: your match to the essential/desirable criteria and the strength of your CV (ie your experience and outputs) are what matter.

[wegie]

Please use the space below to tell us about your skills and experience and how they satisfy each of the criteria in the person specification.

-> So far, so good, sounds like a standard cover letter

You might find it helpful to use the person specification criteria as headings to structure this section.

-> Does this mean I should provide a document with bullets and subheadings in place of the cover letter?

As Scotia says, most places want to see *exactly* how you fulfill the essential and desirable criteria -- this one is just nudging you a bit further towards the bullet points and subheadings.

However, check whether the online form will allow you to do bullet points and subheadings. Plenty of HTML form submission routines either barf over non-text formatting, completely ignore anything that isn't a hard carriage return or use an idiosyncratic set of their own commands for formatting (why yes, forum software, I am looking at you).

It'll also be useful for you to write out structured document that shows how you meet all of the criteria, then give that and your full CV to somebody with experience in applications -- as it's not always the most recent stuff that often goes in a covering letter that best fulfills the criteria on the person spec. You can still structure the document as a narrative rather than as bullet points, but it should be a thematic narrative that addresses the essential criteria in the order given in the person specification.

For teaching or research posts, applicants should also upload a separate document or CV into the "Document Upload" section, setting out teaching and research interests and publications (including the title, reference and date of each publication).

-> This part confuses me. Would they like a CV, a document or both? If I were to supplement my CV with such a document, would it not be with the information that I already intend to include in a cover letter?

Does your CV contain a statement of research and teaching interests? If it doesn't, you should probably add those sections to the CV before uploading the CV. I recently dug out an extremely ancient academic CV of mine (I seem to recall that it was the one that got me a lectureship in 1994 ;-) in a rootle through my computer's filesystems, and my research and teaching interests covered about 3/4s of a page in 11pt palatino. 

[mgonza5]

Thank you both for your responses. I think the most important thing that is emerging out of this discussion is that responding closely and explicitly to the person specification is crucial. I suppose, perhaps because I am a young scholar, that I feel that I have only so much to say about myself and I can really only think of one order in which to say it for the purposes of this position (which happens to match the order in the listing, because it is fairly common sense)...

The application offers the possibility of uploading the documents (thanks for the warning, wegie!), which I think I will do, to ensure that the presentation remains neat and tidy. I will also try and see if I can ask a friend of a friend to look over my materials to make sure that they are on track.

[wegie]

The application offers the possibility of uploading the documents (thanks for the warning, wegie!), which I think I will do, to ensure that the presentation remains neat and tidy. I will also try and see if I can ask a friend of a friend to look over my materials to make sure that they are on track.

Oh, one final thing . . .

Reformat for A4!

We don't have letter size paper over here. Everything is done on A4. If you want your stuff to come out properly, make sure you've selected A4 as your default page size. Nasty things have been known to happen to letter size documents, particularly if they have hard page breaks in them.

[expatinuk]

One of the things that I do when writing an application is to have something that goes like this:

How I meet the personal specification:

1. Needs to know basketweaving 1
I have been an expert basketweaver since 2008 when I published my first book, Introduction to basketweaving.

2. Ability to communicate effectively (this one always makes me laugh)
I have presented over 50 million keynote addresses about basketweaving and blah blah blah (see how well I communicate)

[dizietsma]

One of the things that I do when writing an application is to have something that goes like this:

How I meet the personal specification:

1. Needs to know basketweaving 1
I have been an expert basketweaver since 2008 when I published my first book, Introduction to basketweaving.

2. Ability to communicate effectively (this one always makes me laugh)
I have presented over 50 million keynote addresses about basketweaving and blah blah blah (see how well I communicate)

Here in the former Colonies, the format is similar. The document describing the required qualities is the 'selection criteria', and Universities and other orgs will specifically ask for a 'statement addressing selection criteria'.

What is expected is a statement like expatnik describes; using the qualities as a heading, with your evidence you possess them below. Your cv contains a timeline, highlights and additional information, as the main details are in this statement addressing document rather than the cv.

In my previous life as a junior bureaucrat, we used this format every time we had to hire. The worst example of a job application ever contained a statement addressing that went like this;

Ability to weave underwater baskets

(applicant)Yes.

Experience assessing used baskets

Yes.

It was not what we were looking for. A couple of paragraphs, including, you know, actual evidence, is more like it.