Using the supporting information section to your best advantage

This section is critical to complete well. It’s your chance to really sell yourself as a suitable applicant and get that invitation to interview.

As an external applicant you have up to 1500 words for this section to persuade and influence the recruiting manager that you could do the job and that you deserve an interview.

So how do you do this?

By tailoring your application i.e., by matching your skills, knowledge, and experience to the job requirements. You need to connect your current and past work experience to the requirements of the role you are applying for. This means you can’t just cut and paste any old thing. You need to make it specific to the job in question.

In the Employment History section of your application, you will have listed your previous jobs and the main duties and responsibilities of each. This will have given you some ability to link your skill set with the job in question, by one job at a time. However, the Supporting Information section of your application is where you can sell yourself and really stand out from the crowd.

You have the freedom to organise this section how you want, so you can do this by grouping your skills and work experience into broader themes and strengths that match the job you are applying for.

Using bullet points and subheadings is good. Long paragraphs and essays are not so good. Make it as easy as possible for the recruiters to find the information you need and want them to see.

The critical thing to do here is to pay close attention to the requirements of the role you are applying for and give good examples of your achievements for each. Remember that now with NHS Jobs the shortlisting criteria are included with the advert. Recruiters will be scoring your application against these. So, make sure you cover these.

What makes a good example?

This will be covered in more detail in section 2 on Having a Successful Interview. A helpful framework to use here is the STAR example.

What is a STAR example?

STAR stands for:

• Situation or Task – what was the context and what were you being asked to do
• Action – what you did to achieve this
• Result – what was the outcome or result, e.g., money or time saved, better customer service, patient care, staff morale etc

In a good STAR example, you address all three elements concisely by writing about your previous experience.

For example:

“At Acme Ltd, as Trainee Accountant, I was asked by my manager, towards year end, to make savings from the budget. This was crucial to the business as we were overspending. I set up a team involving key people from across the business, such as department heads. I asked people to share their ideas and we then prioritised the best ones. For example, I decided to change our electricity supplier to a lower tariff and reduced our stock levels by 10% which improved our working capital. Overall, I achieved £20k in savings, almost 3% of the budget, and we hit the year-end target. My manager was really pleased, and I got a letter of recognition from the Managing Director.”