Tip 41 : Focus on benefits
Believe it or not, focusing purely on skills and experience is not the strongest way to write a personal statement.
Don't get me wrong; it's great that you've got a myriad of relevant skills and experience...It's just not enough to leave it at that. Rather than simply explaining what you've got, you also need to tell the reader why that helps them. This is the wonder of benefits-oriented writing.
To put this in a context you'll be familiar with, consider the world of advertising. You'll rarely see deodorant sold on the basis of how nice it smells... because it's just not that interesting. What do you see instead? Well, if it's a male product yo'll probably see a guy using the product, and then being inundated with attractive female companions. The deodorant company isn't selling a nice smell, they're selling the ability to attract potential partners. Chocolate is another perfect example - The companies usually don't sell the sweet treat, or even the taste. They sell the feeling of indulgence.
So how do we use this benefits-oriented approach to sell ourselves? Well that's actually pretty simple in theory; just explain how your skills and experience can benefit the reader.
Let's say you're applying to study medicine at university, and you've got a significant amount of work experience under your belt. Go ahead and talk about the work experience, but also draw it back to the criteria you know they're looking for. Medical schools are usually keen to ensure that applicants are aware of the realities of medicine, and don't harbour a 'rose tinted' view of life as a doctor. Clearly, if you've got relevant work experience under your belt, you should be well aware of the realities, so go ahead and say so.
If you're applying for a sales job at a tech company, it's worth mentioning that you personally use their products and have a personal interest in technology (if indeed you do). More than this, though, you'll want to point out this will give you an edge when selling their products; you've used (and like) them yourself, and you'll always be able to talk knowledgably about new products because you'll be researching in your own time.
In its most basic form, benefits oriented writing is about saying "I do X, so that you get Y". If you're consistently providing both halves of the formula, you're heading in the right direction.
As mentioned, in theory it is pretty simple, although if you want to create a top quality personal statement using benefits orientated writing then the more experience you have in this kind of writing the better. Oh and a decent dose of creativity and natural writing talent doesn't go amiss either.
Tip 42 : Be achievement oriented
It's great to have experience, and even better if that experience is directly relevant to the job or course you're applying for. Unfortunately, it's often not enough on its own.
The problem is that a great many people also have experience in that area. They might even have more years of experience than you do. But in truth, it's not necessarily the years of experience that are important - It's what you did with them.
This is where achievements come in.
You could say you have 10 years' experience in tech sales, but wouldn't it be more powerful to say that you brought in £50k in sales revenue in the last quarter? Suddenly the number of years' experience doesn't seem so important, right?
Now clearly, the higher profile your achievements are, the better. But if you've made the effort to turn your skills and experience into achievements, you're immediately putting yourself ahead of people who haven't. You might be in competition with the greatest salesperson who ever lived, but if all they've said it that they have 25 years' experience, you are arguably in with a better chance of getting the interview.
An important point to remember here is that being specific provides a huge amount of credibility. Increasing sales significantly or dramatically is great, and they are powerful words, but if you have the option to say that you brought in £50k in sales revenue in the last quarter you should nearly always do so. Equally, if you have other precise financial figures that sound impressive, by all means use them.
Before I finish up on this, there's a small psychological factor that shouldn't be ignored. Specific figures are very credible, but general figures generally aren't.
So if you increased sales by 54.3%, or £23.6k, say so. Rounding these figures sometimes only weakens their impact - even if you rounded them up to 55% and £25k.
Don't believe me? Well, here's a true story that might explain things.
In 1847, the 'Great Trigonometry Survey', an undertaking designed to locate and accurately measure the height of the world's largest mountains, arrived in the Himalayas. It took nine years, but the British Surveyor General of India, Andrew Waugh, concluded that Peak XV (Everest) was "probably the highest mountain in the world".
There was just one problem - The calculations showed that the mountain was exactly 29,000 feet high. Unsurprisingly Waugh didn't want the previous nine years worth of work to be construed as nothing more than a rounded estimate, so the mountain was declared to be 29,002 feet high - seemingly more believable, and justifying the effort and expense required to achieve the measurement. As a result of this, Waugh is rather wittily credited as being 'the first person to put two feet on top of Everest'.