I prepared a written application (cover letter, resume and selection criteria) for a client who was applying for a middle management level state government project management role in the IT field: Principal Business Systems Analyst. He was successful in gaining a job interview and was offered the role which he accepted. The interview panel commented on the high quality of his written application. The selection criteria component required addressing five key areas: Communication; Output Management; Conceptual, Analytical and Judgement; Leadership and People Skills; Technical and Professional. The requirement in addressing the selection criteria was up to one page in length for each criterion. Following are excerpts from two of the criteria.
Communication.
Whilst I worked in Human Resources (DEF Department), a situation arose where the confidence of non-teaching staff had dropped markedly due to a large number of errors with pay and leave calculations. I suggested a meeting with these staff members. The union also requested that it be invited to speak. I coordinated an industrial relations (IR) meeting that required strong liaison skills due to the confrontational nature of the situation. Prior to the meeting, I ran small workshops explaining the processes that I had implemented in order to resolve these issues. I found that these small meetings were well received and that staff were appreciative of my personal approach. Subsequently, the IR meeting went ahead smoothly and when the union called for industrial action, the non-teaching staff voted it down. The reason they provided, was that my proactive personal approach gave them the confidence that their concerns would be met and resolved. I subsequently made these small meetings a regular feature of the district I was responsible for, and because I had delivered as promised on their concerns, the HR manager instigated these types of meetings on a regular across six other districts.
Conceptual, Analytical and Judgement.
Whilst employed with the DEF Department, the IT Help Desk was charged with the roll out of XP and Office 2003 applications to libraries. Our weekly call statistics rose from 500 to 1,500 per week. I used the Call Tracking Software to analyse the breakdown of calls by issue type. This enabled the targeting of several areas including staff training, which would ultimately assist in removing a significant percentage of calls. I authored a document that was emailed to all library staff outlining solutions to several commonly-faced problems. As a result, calls to the Help Desk dropped significantly. In addition, the feedback received from library staff was that they were now more confident in using the MS package and accepting of the changes taking place. The staff also felt more empowered in their individual ability to seek and implement solutions to challenging situations.
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Cheers,
Annie Cerone
