So, having got past the "I hate me, how do I say that nicely in a personal statement?" part (here, in case you're interested), I now have to find some way to whittle down the nauseating string of positive adjectives into a personal statement.
Based on the adjectives that I managed to twist out of my self loathing, I could say that I am an organised, committed, creative, engaging, positive, outgoing, flexible, contemplative, observant, unbiased, tolerant, reflective individual who is independent and happy to instigate, but good at taking a back seat, confident but constantly striving for self improvement and open to criticism, passionate and enthusiastic but having perspective, taking a balanced view, knowledgeable and with a thirst for knowledge, assertive with good prioritising skills and attention to detail, looking for work in the environmental sector with a long-term view of furthering my higher education.
But that is long, boring and wordy. Not that I'm in a position to, but I wouldn't hire someone so... immodest. In fairness, if I was a recruiter (which I am not), I would prefer to hire someone who put no personal statement because they feel that singing one's own praises is trite and - more importantly - vain.
I feel slightly unwell. And the point of the exercise is to feel better about myself, not to want to vomit on myself.
Because of the way that I came up with these adjectives (which is far too long to go into within brackets) some of these words are redundant. The next task, then, is to group associated and/or interchangeable words:
positive
knowledgeable / engaging
contemplative / reflective
observant / attention to detail / organised
flexible/ independent / happy to instigate / creative / good prioritising skills
confident / assertive / outgoing
flexible / tolerant / good at taking a back seat
tolerant / open to
criticism / striving for self improvement
committed / passionate / enthusiastic / thirst for knowledge
having perspective / taking a
balanced view / unbiased
You may notice that flexible and tolerant are both included twice: flexible because it says that I can lead or follow (independent or taking a back seat), tolerant because it says that I can take leadership and advice (taking a back seat and open to criticism.
So the next step is to try and make sure it doesn't sound cliche.
Let's get rid of:
Positive - in the current economic climate, it says a lot about you that you can spend 8 months unemployed and stay positive, but it's a little bit... peripheral.
Attention to detail - I was on a "how to get employed" course a while ago (can you tell it didn't work?) and one of the words that everyone used and it annoyed me that the lovely instructor didn't pick up on was "Attention to detail." I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that out of the five other people there, all of them included "Attention to detail" on their draft personal statements.
Of the two remaining, observant and organised... organised is not something to boast about. It's either required or not required, and you're not expected to apply for administrative posts if you're not organised. Stating the obvious in such an application might make them question whether you are actually organised. Well, if they were me.
So that's out.
(Do bear in mind that recruitment agencies use the most twattish thing ever to sift through CVs - automated keyword searches. And guess what? Automated keyword searches ignore the people that have used more original language and go for the drones. However, quite where in your CV the word is doesn't matter to the bot, so it could be an idea to put spare/commonly used words... between the lines*)
Between contemplative and reflective, I would tend towards contemplative. Reflective conjures images of someone daydreaming philosophies in the back of biology class. It's out.
Because they are a little less wound, the "independent" words are difficult to get rid of. Independent itself is again, a bit of a cliche and (I think I recall hearing) has gained a sort of stigma as it may mean that someone is impossible to get on with. It's out. Good prioritising skills feels like organised - if you're applying for a position where you have to prioritise, and you're saying you can lead, it's pretty much assumed that you know where you stand on getting the cake out of the oven or the baby out of the burning building. And less cut-and-dry cases. It's gone.
Flexible is generally a useful one to keep in, and creative I'm going to hold onto as it's a little bit outside of the "independent" box. Happy to Instigate, then, is going to stand for independent here (although it is liable to tweaking later in the game...)
Outgoing sounds too much "I'm going to climb a mountain and then jump out of a plane" for most jobs (although I would imagine it's a useful hidden keyword for sales positions). Confident sounds a little bit overblown ("I know I'm wonderful, just hire me!" sort of thing). That may be the point, but Assertive is a good word because it tells them that you're not going to be in their face, but that you aren't going to just sit back and take abuse, either. It is possibly a bit cliche, but it's cliche because it's a very good thing to be that is not a prerequisite, and, if you have an assertive bone in your body (even if, like mine, it's in one of your toes), it may be worth keeping it (the adjective, not the bone) in for the semi-final.
I'm in two minds about Tolerant. It sounds a little bit like Nick Griffin (British Nationalist Party racist bigot leader, just in case you didn't know) saying "Some of my best friends are black!" (Although I doubt he'd say something like that and lose his single voter). Regardless that it's not actually about seperating yourself from ethnic/religious intolerance, but rather about tolerating bosses who are assholes (with me being British, that means "donkeyholes", which is infinitely less insulting than the alternative and need not be censored), it sounds like you're trying to cover up that you're actually an intolerant jerk. It can be different in context, of course, and may be another useful hidden word.
Open to criticism versus striving for self improvement is dealt with as such: which one takes a more active role? Striving for self improvement. It says you're not just open to criticism, you actively seek out criticism and advice to make yourself better. It wins.
Now we come to committed, passionate, enthusiastic and thirsty for knowledge.
These ones are difficult. The first three sound a little bit cliche, and thirsty for knowledge sounds wierd without one of them. It's going away (for now). Eager to learn may be a better one to say that you eat knowledge for breakfast, but if we use striving for self improvement, we cover that ground anyway.
Passionate is a little too informal, unless you're going for good cause work. It's disappearing from generic personal statementland in the meantime. Committed and enthusiastic work reasonably well together, so they both stay, for now.
Taking a balanced view is clearly a messy way of saying unbiased. It's going, although unbalanced is another one for the invisible keywords if I suspect auto-filters are in use. As for having perspective... it sounds like it would be appropriate if you're applying to work in, for example, a funeral home, and are no stranger to grief, but it sounds a little out of place otherwise. Unbiased is great if you want to be a judge, but Objective might be better here.
So far, then, we're down to:
Knowledgeable, Engaging, Striving for self improvement, Contemplative, Observant, Flexible, Happy to Instigate, Creative, Assertive, Good at taking a back seat, committed, enthusiastic and Objective.
This still seems a bit much - if I was to say:
"I am a knowledgeable and engaging zoology graduate from the University of Nottingham, looking for work in the [e.g. customer service industry]. I am assertive but observant and flexible, happy to instigate or to take a back seat, and would enthusiastically commit to a role that makes the most of my objectiveness while challenging my creativity and allowing opportunities for self improvement."
it would seem a little bit... crowded. In particular Objectiveness doesn't seem to fit in, and the "but" between assertive and observant makes it seem as though we're using assertive as a euphemism for aggressive (when we just want to say we're capable of aggression when required).
One option is to thrown in a third sentence (radical, I know):
"I
am a knowledgeable and engaging zoology graduate from the University
of Nottingham, looking for work in the [e.g. catering industry]. I am observant, flexible and assertive, capable of instigation and objectively taking direction. I would enthusiastically commit to a role that challenges my creativity and provides opportunities for self-improvement."
It's pretty keyword rich, and can't be read more than a couple of times, but as a basic structure, it works (more or less...).
However, I don't want something to work more or less - I want something that works.
And that brings us to the next major hurdle in trouble.
The first thing I do when proofreading anything (usually longer things, to be fair) is read them aloud. And reading it aloud, I'm getting rid of objective. It just doesn't fit. Other than that, it seems to be ready for someone else to tell me whether it's alright, and to go in pulp CVs in between...
"I am a knowledgeable and engaging zoology graduate from the University of Nottingham, looking for work in the retail industry. I am observant, flexible and assertive, capable of instigation and taking direction, and would enthusiastically commit to a role that challenges my creativity and provides opportunities for self-improvement."
In other news, I have a rejection from Cardiff on their otters job.
Not unexpected, and at least they got back to me. And it wasn't right after the closing date, either, which means they must have thought about it. I would make this relevent by saying that they would have given me the job if I'd had a personal statement, but as it turns out, most of the jobs I apply for don't even want to see your CV, but rather require you to fill out an application form.
*By between the lines I mean throw invisible keywords into your CV. By colouring them white and putting them either in headers or footers or after fullstops, you keep them invisible but make sure the bots don't pass you by because you can think for yourself and/or use a thesaurus.
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