By Keith Clark, Head of International Appointments
Rarely a newsletter goes by in which we do not make some reference to the importance of letters of application in senior leadership appointments.
The application letter is your opportunity to tell us why: why you, why the role, why at this point in your career, why your experience and skills are relevant.
For a candidate strong on paper, it is a chance to stand out from a crowd – to position yourself in alignment with the role. For those who seem a little less obvious in terms of experience, it is a chance to say, ‘Don’t rule me out.’ This last point can make it useful in EDI terms – a chance to put your experience in context and to draw us to you even if your background and trajectory is a less obvious route into the role.
It is remarkable how many senior leaders don’t pay sufficient attention to their letters of application, even when going for some of the most sought-after roles.
Here are some tips:
1. Respect the reader: Our guidance is to keep the letter to two pages. Sometimes that’s a requirement, sometimes advice. If it’s advice, a compelling, easy-to-read letter makes a limit less relevant. Please do not read the guidance as: show us how clever you are in maximising words on the page, feeling free to use 8-point font and removing any semblance of margins. Such formatting makes a letter very difficult to read – and almost impossible to do so quickly. It can leave us annoyed, and that’s not what you want.
2. Avoid generic: When we say, ‘a letter that is largely generic may risk your application not being given serious consideration’ we do mean it. We want you to tell us why the job appeals and why you are right for it. A letter that tells us who you are but with no attempt to tie it to the job is ignoring the advice.
3. Follow the instructions: If the candidate information says ‘please address your letter to Mr Khalid Akhtar, Chair of the Board’ do not write ‘Dear Selection Committee.’ Your application may well fall on that basis.
4. Your letter is not your CV: Letters that tell us I did that and then I did this and after that… just do not do the job. We will read your CV or application form. We want to know how what you have done relates to the job you are applying for.
5. Avoid unforced errors: You’d be surprised how often a letter supposedly about Pathways International School includes a reference to a completely different school. The best letters have been checked and double-checked.
6. Don’t top and tail: Perhaps the most frustrating letter of all starts off beautifully. And then the second paragraph onwards is completely generic. Until the last paragraph. Reading these letters can make us feel patronised. There is a cleverer variation – specific references throughout an otherwise totally generic letter. Sometimes we are almost fooled. But only sometimes. And only almost.
7. Show you understand: We often find ourselves asking, ‘Have they read the candidate info?’ The letter is a chance to show you ‘get’ the school and the role, and it is this that fires your interest. AI makes this easier – at least getting the basic understanding down. But really owning that understanding needs your authenticity.
8. Don’t overstate: Help us to understand the relevance of your experience, but don’t undermine yourself by overdoing it. Not everyone will be able to meet every requirement, and when you try to prove you do, it becomes difficult to know what to take at face value. We recognise there are cultural differences around how people express themselves in such situations, but statements about matching every single requirement can be implausible.
9. Be honest: You would be surprised how often we read statements we know not to be true. I chair an organisation, Amala, which delivers secondary education in refugee communities, and international school educators have helped us in our work. One candidate claimed to have had a role that I knew was not the case. Equally, we sometimes see falsehoods and exaggerations in relation to schools we know well.
10. Think of the reader: You have taken on board Point 1 and made it possible to read your letter. Now, also try to think about what we are reading. Please try to make it interesting, informative and, well, readable. But remember that your letter may be read by both us and the school, so don’t take too much for granted in terms of earlier conversations.
We know good application letters take a lot of time and a great deal of emotional commitment. That commitment oozes out of the best letters.
We may be reviewing 45 applications for a senior leadership role (sometimes many more), and we spend 10-15 minutes on each application at this stage. We use grids of criteria to assess applications as objectively as we can. But in a field of very credible candidates, which is what we aim for, there may not be much to choose between many candidates. The letter becomes the discriminator. The following are real comments made on applications which serve to illustrate the points we have raised:
‘Strong against the criteria but the letter is totally generic – in a field this strong, it has to be a no.’
‘Intriguing experience – really wanted the application to tell us why. Without that, I can’t see how we justify an interview.’
‘I was in two minds because of their role at [name of school], but the letter makes them a must-see.’
‘A shame: too many mistakes and misunderstandings in the letter.’
‘Brilliant letter – really gets it and shows how his experience would equip him’