How to Succeed at: Writing Applications

The University of Sheffield via FutureLearn

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Details

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Provider

FutureLearn
Pricing

Free Online Course (Audit)
Languages

English
Certificate

$99.00 Certificate Available
Duration & workload

3 weeks long, 3 hours a week
Sessions

Found in

Grammar & Writing Courses

Overview

Experts from The Careers Service here at The University of Sheffield share their top tips to help you write exceptional applications, CVs (or résumés), covering letters and personal statements.

You’ll also hear from employers and admissions tutors to find out what they really look for in a candidate. And once you’ve written that perfect application, prepare for the next stage with our course: How to Succeed at: Interviews.

This course is designed for anyone applying for jobs or courses. It will be of particular interest to those in the early stages of their career, or those who are out of practice and need to update their skills. No prior knowledge or expertise are needed.

Syllabus

Preparing to apply

Welcome to Week 1
Understanding yourself
Understanding jobs and courses
Making the match
Summary of the week

CVs and covering letters

Welcome to Week 2
Create an effective CV
Develop a professional online profile
Sell yourself in your covering letter
End of week summary

Application forms and personal statements

Welcome to Week 3
Outstanding application forms
Brilliant personal statements
End of course summary

Taught by

Hilary Jones and Pamela Hafekost

Reviews

4.7 rating, based on 436 Class Central reviews

4.7 rating at FutureLearn based on 399 ratings

Start your review of How to Succeed at: Writing Applications

Rashesd Sufian @Surf

I've taken a lot of writing courses in my life, but I must confess that "How to Succeed at: Writing Applications" organised by the University of Sheffield via FutureLearn is exceptional. The course teaches modern approaches to preparing applications that guarantee employment at workplaces and admission at institutions. We, the course-takers, are provided with real-time materials to assist us to gain insights into the world of applications and sell ourselves to recruiters. If anyone is looking forward to "upping" their application writing skills, the course is a must.
Sylvia Amar @Pimiko

Sylvia Amar completed this course, spending 3 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be very easy.

It's a very easy course to prepare resumes, linkedin profiles and job / courses applications. It's well documented with recruiters interviews.
Ih San

Ih San completed this course.

- A wonderful course! - I liked the pedagogical approach the course used to attract attention from the first till the last step, with various activities (videos, articles, exercises and successful samples with analysis - I liked the discussions, th…

- A wonderful course!
- I liked the pedagogical approach the course used to attract attention from the first till the last step, with various activities (videos, articles, exercises and successful samples with analysis
- I liked the discussions, they was enriching
- What can be improved is the discussion section. It would be better if the instructors and course developers could interact with the learner comments to confirm what is good and give advice for what is wrong, so that other learners take full benefit from the comments.
- Suggestion: some funny (but instructive also) steps can also be added, like asking the recruiters what was the funniest moment in their recruiting experience...
- I hope I've provided beneficial and useful review, just like your course was to me.
Thank you!
Anonymous

If you are struggling with job applications or university/college applications then I would highly recommend this course as it provides a great deal of useful information such as preparing CVs and covering letters, STAR, the type of questions you might be asked at an interview and the best way to answer them. It provides information on how to approach an application form, sample CVs and covering letters.
The videos are quite good too. The people involved know what is expected of potential candidates whether it's for a job or an application to a university or college. I would definitely recommend listening to what they have to say and taking onboard their advice.
Anonymous

I'm a mature aged professional looking to make a career change. I found the course a valuable exercise as it has helped get up to date with current recruitment trends, writing application, especially streamlining them). The STAR model a very useful tool. I would recommend this course to all age groups.

The handouts very helpful.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to join the course.
Anonymous

I greatly appreciate your valuable insights on how to approach introducing oneself to a new company in a logical and motivating manner. Your solutions have proven to be incredibly helpful and I am grateful for the guidance you have provided. Thank you for sharing your expertise with me.
Anonymous

Excellent course. The content is the complete package of drafting profile, written and video CV and cover letter. Moreover, the questions regarding the process of drafting CV, profile and cover letter and their answers analysis are really very important.
Anonymous

The course is very good, very useful and quite complete, but you have to be really committed if you want to get the most out of it and not forget the knowledge they give us. They really teach you what fits reality and give you good examples
Anonymous

It has been an informative, educative and insightful course. It has assisted me in writing better applications and writing better cv. The course is quite rich and prepares one to apply for vacancies better.
Anonymous

This course helps me for creating a cover letter and resume. I hope that in the future you have the same or better programs for people.
Anonymous

This course helped to understand basic important point to write application best ways. You can understand what's active style , and brand yourself in a better way on front of any organizations / recruiters /manager . You can also learn basic important principal of writing application . It's very helpful specially for biggner . Must be checked it . learned to write proper application methods . In this way you can build confidence to show yourself on paper form of writing style . I like it . Thanks future learning .
Anonymous

I liked this course very much. This course was to my expectation level. I can see the guidance through out the course to improve writing application. I hope this will enable me to qualify for the job position or phd study.I can see the postgraduate, research and phd opportunity at the last part of your program. I hope that this course will provide me the guidance for opportunity to advance in my academic and professional career. Thanks for allowing me to be a part of the programme and I would be very grateful if I get the opportunity to join the advance programme to get advance research and phd to broaden my knowledge at your prestigious university. Please help me and guide me.
Anonymous

That's incredible course. I enjoyed learning writing for the first time in my life. Thanks for organizers. From starting to finishing your application you must give relevant information in correct order and size. Giving reference is new to me. Preparing video application can be helpful. All the activities and examples are great. I find participating in this course interesting and amazing opportunity to boost my career goals.
Chunfang Zhang

I very much like the course “How to Succeed at: Writing Applications” provided by the University of Sheffield via FutureLearn, the duration of which is 3 weeks. There are 51 sections, including 22 articles, 16 videos, 3 quizzes, 6 discussions and 4 exercises. I am happy to have completed the course and do appreciate the diligent, friendly and excellent course team, attractive instructional design, helpful contents, rich resources, and diversified teaching methods. I have benefited a lot from the tips and techniques, together with the brilliant samples and detailed analysis for making more effective applications. I do recommend you to attend the course.
Anonymous

Anonymous completed this course.

Writng application must be accurate , clear and related to the a job . First of all write clear info. about youself. List of education , date ,grade and format specified in the instruction.Then give brief details of each period of employment and wo…

Writng application must be accurate , clear and related to the a job .
First of all write clear info. about youself.
List of education , date ,grade and format specified in the instruction.Then give brief details of each period of employment and work experience including voluntary and unpaid work if you wish.
Give details of leisure interests and activities that demonstrate skills such as leadership, team working, organisation.
Some applications include a section where you are asked to describe your relevant skills and experience and your reasons for applying, usually in the form of a personal statement.
In the interview some questions might be asked about your motivations and skills of applying a job like :
Why are you applying for this job/course?
Why this organisation?
Describe a difficult problem you have solved.
How did you analyse and solve it?
If you are not sure about your skills and experience, try our short course to look at how you can provide evidence of them in competency based and motivational questions.
Riaz Laghari @riazlaghari

Riaz Laghari is taking this course right now.

It is an effective course to develop your skills.It shares tips ,techniques and ways to write best applications.If you learn it ,your chances of getting a job might increase significantly.Good luck!
Olivia Farley

What was so wonderful is how mine opening it can really be! So I just kept an open mind and let me tell you I’ve learned so much my brain hurts!!
I love learning new thing and finding things to discover all the time! These courses are complex but simple in some way or another. Crazy how that works but , it’s the fact of how much our brains can improve like this learning and growing to open our minds to become smarter! Makes you feel like you could do anything!! Thank you to everyone who created this to the public to learn seriously!!
Anonymous

Even I have done the course quickly because I was very busy during the first week, I enjoyed and find it very useful for applying to any job. I could rebuilt my CV following the tips and valuable advices the professors give.
I have learned how to write a personal letter including what is necessary, and avoiding redundant details.
The course is very complete and help me a lot. It deserves five stars. I can recommend it to anyone interested in applying for a job or a course
Anonymous

It has been an amazing journey this far. I had to delay an application so that I'll immediately implement whatever I'll learn front his course. I look forward to landing my first ever interview for my dream job after implementing what I've taken out time to learn for the past few days of this course. Thank you to the University of Sheffield for bringing this course to us for free and thanks to the futurelearn.com team for an amazing task so far.
Radia Benmenni

The best course about writing applications I found on the internet, very useful tips, the method of presentation is great and the explanation was comprehensive.

Thank you.