OXFORD

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APPLICATION ESSENTIALS
HOW TO REFLECT THE SAME
EXPERIENCE IN A CV, COVER LETTER
AND APPLICATION FORM
For any application, you should lead with your best, most relevant experience for the role. It
is likely, therefore, that you will want to refer to some experiences more than once in different
elements of the process.
The paragraphs below illustrate how this might look for Sian Magellan’s TSC leadership
experience.
COVER LETTER
Whilst participating in The Student Consultancy, I
developed my leadership skills by leading a team of five
students to design and implement a marketing strategy to
increase sales for our local start-up client. I organised our
meeting schedule, allocated roles to each team member,
coordinated with the client, implemented our surveys
and ensured that we delivered our recommendations
on time. As a result of my team’s recommendations, six
months later our client’s sales have increased by 20% and
I received excellent feedback both from the client and
other members of my team.
EMPLOYER APPLICATION FORM (EAF)
Describe a time when you demonstrated leadership skills (250 words)
Last January I led a 5 member team on The Student
Consultancy, an 8 week programme run by Oxford
University Careers Service to build commercial
awareness and team skills. Within this timeframe,
my goal as team leader was to deliver a series of
recommendations to our team’s local start-up client to
increase their sales. First I organised a series of meetings
across the 8 weeks when all or most of us could get
together to work on the project. Secondly I asked each
team member to share their skills and insights into
how they could contribute to developing an effective
marketing strategy. Thirdly, and based on the combined
skillset of my team, I allocated roles to each member,
covering research, survey design and implementation,
budgeting and reporting. Having established a way
forward, we then agreed a timeframe for each aspect of
the project. As team leader, as well as being responsible
for survey implementation, I remained the focal point
of contact with our client, keeping them up to date with
all our project implementation, key findings and asking
for any clarifications when required. I also kept in touch
regularly with each team member in between our team
meetings so that I could deal with any unexpected
delays or findings and keep our project on track. We
delivered our recommendations on time to our client,
who welcomed and implemented them all. Six months
later, the client’s sales have increased by 20% and our
suggestions are still being followed. (247 words).
CV
EXPERIENCE
2015 Oxford University, The Student Consultancy, Team Leader, (8 weeks)
]
] Designed and executed paper and phone surveys, engaging 250 participants
] Presented recommendations to client; all implemented within 3 months and delivering
20% increase in sales within 6 months
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