Wednesday, 20 February 2013

Blog Post #3

Application Letter Critique

Recruitment advert: http://www.capitaland.com/en/gdp/programme-overview.html

(2nd Draft)



Chua Jie Ying
BLK 123 #12-34, Lorong 1 ABC Land, Singapore 123456

February 20, 2013

The Hiring Manager,
Human Resource Department,
CapitaLand Limited,
168 Robinson Road, #30-01 Capital Tower, Singapore 068912

Dear Hiring Manager,

Application for Graduate Development Programme (GDP) Trainee

I am writing to express my interest in joining the CapitaLand GDP, an opportunity I learnt about through the National University of Singapore (NUS) Career Fair which appealed to me immensely.  I am expected to graduate from NUS with a 2nd Upper Class Honours in Mechanical Engineering in May 2013. I am keen to start my career with CapitaLand because of its unique credo of Building People which provides continuous development and career progression within a dynamic business environment. I am intrigued by its steadfast mindset to conduct its business, interact with stakeholders and contribute to the well-being of its employees and the community in a responsible and ethical way. I would love to be part of this multi-local organization to contribute to its core value of value adding through innovation and continuous improvement.

Assuming the role as a NUS Student Union Account Manager, I was tasked to liaise with DBS Bank for sponsorships. During my term, I collaborated with DBS Bank for their participation in various school events and reached out to student masses to achieve exceeding DBS NUS Debit Card signups which enabled me in securing an additional sponsorship of $10,000 from DBS on top of the basic sponsorship of $20,000 per contractual year.  This post certainly provided me the opportunities to hone my interpersonal communication and negotiation skills.

During my Junior College years, I was actively involved in school activities, taking up 3 CCAs and one of which displayed my great passion to serve the College was through the role as a Student Council. Apart from being a very enthusiastic vice house captain in uniting my cluster, I was the overall in-charge for National Day Celebrations organizing committee. Together with my team, we successfully pulled off the major college event in a memorable and novel way. I was also deeply committed to building a strong Council by mentoring and guiding my juniors closely even after I stepped down from office. With these commitments and excellence, I was awarded the College Values Award for “Service with Honour”.

A career at CapitaLand will definitely give me the opportunity to perform and learn across geographies and gain valuable exposure to various functions across different units. Additionally, this programme, to which meaningful and challenging tasks are assigned, appeals to my career aspirations and personal development. Given a chance, with my outgoing personality and positive work attitude displayed in my previous roles, I am confident of developing my potential to the fullest with CapitaLand’s GDP and contribute back in building a sustainable better future for the stakeholders, not just for this generation, but for generations to come. I look forward to grow with the learning opportunities offered at CapitaLand.

Thank you for your time to review my application. I have enclosed my resume for your consideration. I look forward to a face-to-face interview with you to discuss my qualifications and how I can be of service to your company. I can be contacted at (+65) xxxxxxxx or jieying.email@gmail.com at your convenience.

Yours sincerely,
Jie Ying

4 comments:

  1. Hi jieying!

    I enjoyed reading your cover letter and I liked how you closely related your letter to your knowledge of the job posting. However, I have several tips for improvement that you might want toconsider.

    Firstly, you might want to be more specific on exactly how you can relate to the program (1st paragraph), and how you can contribute to the company (4th paragraph). To do that, you might want to focus on one of the points, and elaborate on it to make it less vague, and more convincing.

    Secondly, certain passive phrases in your letter can be improved on, to promote a more proactive impression of you. For example, "assuming the role of account manager" should be rephrased to "AS the account manager", and "tasked to liaise" should be changed simply to "liaised".

    Overall, I will suggest being more concise and specific in your letter! Nevertheless, good job on the cover letter!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey Wei Zhe! Thank you for the constructive feedbacka and pointing out how my letter lacked at relating back to the program and how I can contribute to the company! These are definitely essential!

      Hope you are able to work towards you dream career in these two years before your graduation! :)

      Delete
  2. Hello Jie Ying,

    You interest in this job is evident, and you make it clear that you are one of those who know what the company is about, and is serious about it. You show variety in sentence structures, which makes reading a pleasure.

    I also like your persuasive style, especially when you linked the qualities to show how you can be an asset to them. As for suggestions, perhaps you can work on being more concise, as Peter mentioned, by reducing the description in your 3rd paragraph, and keeping the focus on how the skills and your personality, would be an advantage to them.

    In all, I enjoyed your letter, and I would be very impressed reading it. All the best!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello Hiranya,

      Thank you for pointing out how I can better improve my letter! Indeed, I really serious about this job posting!

      All the best to you internship application too!

      Delete