Oguz Kaan Kısa · Jan. 12, 2021
While there may be many uses for a personal statement (whether it is for university or for your CV), its purpose is still focused on selling yourself to the reader. You must not only summarize your knowledge and experience, you must also ensure that it is applicable to what you are applying for.
And how do you make it stand out from others? Here are our top tips to remember when writing your personal statement for your CV to ensure you're doing it right:
To help you stand out from the competition, a personal statement is a short personal description given to prospective employers. For university applications, a personal statement is often mandatory, but will typically be far more comprehensive.
One of the most critical sections of your CV is your personal statement.
This offers you a chance to sell yourself in a short and easy-to-digest paragraph to the boss. You will be able to prove your suitability and persuade the recruiter to read on by summing up the particular skills and experience that make you suitable for the role.
In fact, the difference between standing out from the crowd and your application being rejected can mean a well written personal statement.
Ideally, no more than about 150 words should be your personal statement (or four or five lines of your CV). Any more than this and you run the risk of taking up precious time and rambling.
Remember: this is a synopsis, not a cover letter. Keep it brief, specific and to the point.
You don't rush it. In a couple of hours, a superb personal statement will not be ready. Or a couple of days, even. It's worth taking a break for a couple of days occasionally, and getting back to it again.
You're trying to sell yourself to the university with your personal statement. It's all about how amazing the thing is, and it's the same with your personal statement, a perfect product recommendation. You should write about your thoughts, your skills and your hopes for the future. You should NOT write, "I wanted to learn Spanish, but I gave it up after a week or "I'm not very good at math, but because I hate it so much, I think this is understandable."
A good first impression can be provided by starting with something funny, interesting, unique or surprising. But don't try to squeeze out of your brain anything funny; that's pointless. At a random moment, after you have already worked hours and hours on your personal statement, the perfect opening sentence will just hit you. Only wait, and don't over think it.
The more people you show it to, the more feedback you receive, and the better the final version will be. Your parents, your teachers, your colleagues, your enemies... Certain suggestions, of course, would be better and some less so, but first it is easier to ask more people, and later to differentiate.
It will help you if you read your personal statement by yourself or to your friends and family. When you write it sentence by sentence you can not realise that there is no cohesion between your sentences and paragraphs. But all the ambiguous bits will magically appear when you read it out, so you can fix them.
To sum up, be yourself and write about your experiences. Take your time and don’t rush things. Try to come up with an excellent opening sentence. Make other people help you and you will be okay.
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