I've just been helping my younger brother complete an application form.
When I was younger, a teenager maybe, I used to get quite excited about filling out forms. I'd always jump to take on the task for my bemused parents, using my neatest, smallest writing and and the least-smudgy biro I could find in the pen pot.
I think it was after doing my UCAS form for entry into university that I realised it wasn't that much fun after all. It's all right when all you have to pen are the facts: name, address, date of birth, mother's maiden name. Your concentration can be focused on curve of the 'G' and whether or not you write the date out in full.
It's when you have to write '150 words about why you want this position' that it becomes less of a calligraphy exercise and more of an academic assignment. These questions really sort out the sheep from the goats. I'm definitely a goat when it comes to this section of a application form.
My favourite question has to be "What are your weaknesses?". I've heard recruiters explanations for this question. And I know it's supposed to be a test of some sort, but I still think it's a very weak question. No one has a good answer to this one. Except perhaps one friend of mine. When asked this particular question in an interview a few years ago, he pondered awhile, and replied with much conviction, "Spelling and women." He didn't get the job.
When I was younger, a teenager maybe, I used to get quite excited about filling out forms. I'd always jump to take on the task for my bemused parents, using my neatest, smallest writing and and the least-smudgy biro I could find in the pen pot.
I think it was after doing my UCAS form for entry into university that I realised it wasn't that much fun after all. It's all right when all you have to pen are the facts: name, address, date of birth, mother's maiden name. Your concentration can be focused on curve of the 'G' and whether or not you write the date out in full.
It's when you have to write '150 words about why you want this position' that it becomes less of a calligraphy exercise and more of an academic assignment. These questions really sort out the sheep from the goats. I'm definitely a goat when it comes to this section of a application form.
My favourite question has to be "What are your weaknesses?". I've heard recruiters explanations for this question. And I know it's supposed to be a test of some sort, but I still think it's a very weak question. No one has a good answer to this one. Except perhaps one friend of mine. When asked this particular question in an interview a few years ago, he pondered awhile, and replied with much conviction, "Spelling and women." He didn't get the job.
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