If you are applying for a job, note the following, recently received
    from an employer.  They apply widely over the public sector, 
    including universities:

    I am writing to you off the record about the recent job applications
    we received for the post of Geo-project Assistant at XXXXX. We had
    quite a few applications from your recent graduates however we
    struggled to short-list any of them due to the way they had filled in
    the application forms.  I appreciate that this is probably more a
    reflection on the rather poor way that XXXXX employs people
    however there is little we can do to change that. As we couldn't
    interview some strong candidates I wanted to let you know so that
    perhaps you could pass on the info to those who are still looking for
    jobs. (It is highly likely that we will be re-advertising this post as
    the preferred candidate turned us down.)

    The main reason that we turned away some strong MSc students was due
    to them not meeting all the essential criteria laid out in the job
    spec. (We also had to dig quite deep for the ones we did invite to
    interview)  If we can't put a tick in the box next to each of these we
    can't invite them to interview, no matter how good the rest of their
    CV. is.

    Even if one of these criteria isn't a strong point they should put
    down any relevant experience to at least get their foot in the door.
    An MSc thesis is a project and all your students have managed one, and
    written a technical report on it! Surveys, questionnaires and dialogue
    are all methods of gathering information from users that most of your
    students have experience of. These key things were missing from
    applicants that I know could have got to at least interview stage.

    Please can you encourage your students who were unsuccessful last time
    to re-apply but think carefully about those essential criteria. It
    would also be very helpful to anyone short-listing candidates if they
    included a short section in the covering letter for each essential
    criteria and a sentence or two for any desirable criteria that they
    meet too. The easier it is to find the information the less likely it
    is that anything will be missed.

    I know that it is really down to the individual in how they apply for
    jobs but I found it very disappointing (and a little unfair) to have
    to reject good applicants because they didn't know the rules of the
    game.  I hope that if you are in contact with any students who don't
    have a full time job yet you can pass this information on.

(Sep, 2012)