Job Application

PROCESS

Activity 1

If you were a CEO of an established company, what qualities will you look for in an applicant? Write
them on the checklist.

Activity 2

This infographic gives us an idea about how recruitment agencies, companies, or employers go about the
process of eyeing potential employee/s. Read it thoroughly and answer the question that follows.
 © AddInfographic.com

As a future job applicant, what are the essential 21st century skills which you need to hone in order to qualify
for your dream job having in mind the considerations companies have in the application process?
The Job Application Processes

Check out this link to find out the Six Steps to Getting a Job by Bruno Vassel III:

https://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/ensign-july-2019/2019-07-0030-six-steps-to-getting-a-job-
eng.pdf?lang=eng

After reading the file, fill out the following stairs to show the process and answer the questions that
follow:
 1. For you, what is the most crucial step in getting a job?
2. How will you know that your prospective employer is giving you a red flag that you have to
move on to the next job application?
3. Why is it critical that a person knows his or her interests, skills, capabilities, and potentials
before choosing a career path?

Activity 3. Read the following article with these questions in mind:

1. What do these success stories imply about the reality of life in terms of pursuing a profession or
dream?
2. How do the people featured in this article faced this reality?
3. What kind of character quality do they possess which we can all emulate to be successful in life?

From Zero to Hero: Five Down-and-Out Jobseeker Success Stories

Staying positive about your employment prospects can be tricky amid all the doom and gloom. But even
the likes of JK Rowling had setbacks before hitting the big time.

Erica Buist

Fri 31 Jan 2014 07.00 GMTFirst published on Fri 31 Jan 2014 07.00 GMT

Disney's pitch for the much-loved character of Mickey Mouse was rejected, some sources say, 300 times.
Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
To the million jobseekers out there, I'm imagining you're on your sofa, lying on your face, lifting your
head for the occasional perusal of a still-empty inbox – an understandable reaction to the crushing
despair of unemployment.

It doesn't help to see dismal employment figures, commentary on why the younger generation is
doomed, and absolutely nothing to make you feel better about it.

So I'd like to attempt a short-term remedy, a mixture of inspiration and schadenfreude – five down-and-
out jobseekers who clawed their way to the top.

5. Ricky Gervais

Gervais was a failed pop star and an unsuccessful manager long before he was a super successful writer,
director and actor. At university he couldn't afford two types of soap – he had to choose between washing
his clothes or himself (in the end he did both; Daz, he informs us, is "quite a good exfoliate").

In his 30s he landed a job at the radio station XFM, where he realised he didn't understand radio and hired
Stephen Merchant to "do all the boring stuff". In 1998, they were both made redundant.

Luckily, Merchant cast Gervais in a short film about a "seedy boss" for a BBC production course, which
we now know as The Office. It became the most successful British sitcom ever.

4. Jim Carrey

The Canadian funnyman was a high school dropout, working as a janitor and security guard to help pay
the family bills. They lost their home and were forced to live in a van. He then moved to LA to struggle
on the stand-up comedy scene before going into the out-of-work-actor business.

While, yes, it sucks to get rejected with the robotic line, "Due to the high volume of applications…", at
least most of us don't have to spend weeks watching the guy who got the job beam at you from the side
of a hundred buses. Before Carrey got his big break on the TV sketch comedy show In Living Color, he
was rejected from leading roles in Saturday Night Live, Sixteen Candles, Bachelor Party, Legend, Ferris
Bueller's Day Off, Back to School and Edward Scissorhands.

But it was worth the wait. Now, aged 52, he's estimated to be worth $20mn.

3. Walt Disney

The man behind children's stories had a rough time on his way to billionaire status. When he dropped out
of high school at 16 to enlist in the army during the first world war, he was rejected for being too young.
At 18, he started drawing political caricatures, but they didn't catch on and he was fired by his editor
because he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas".

Disney started a business with a cartoonist, and it failed, as did his second business. In fact, he went
bankrupt five times before he found success with Disneyland, which was also rejected by the city of
Anaheim, Orange County, because it would "only attract riffraff". At one-point Disney was so skint he
survived on dog food.
He also faced a lot of ridicule. His project of turning Snow White into a feature-length animation, was
called "Disney's folly". He even ran out of funding during production, and had to show loan officers a
rough cut to secure enough cash to finish it.

His pitch for the much-loved character of Mickey Mouse was rejected too – he was told it would never
work because a giant mouse on the screen would "terrify women". Despite enduring rejection and
ridicule, between 1932 and 1969 Disney won 22 Academy Awards and was nominated 59 times – more
than anyone else in history.

2. JK Rowling

Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter novel at rock bottom: "I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it
is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless." She survived on benefits, sometimes going
without dinner so she could feed her children.

The first manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers. The 13th publisher accepted it at the behest of the
only person it seems had actually bothered to read it – the chief executive's eight-year-old daughter.

The books did rather well, and Rowling was the first female novelist to become a billionaire – although
now, after a spate of charitable giving, she's back to being a humble millionaire.

1. Abraham Lincoln

In his book, Emotional Equations, Chip Conley notes how Abraham Lincoln had a rough time too, almost
drowning, losing his mother when aged nine, his fiancée and sister when he was 26 – not to mention
getting malaria, syphilis, smallpox, and kicked in the head by a horse.

Lincoln failed in business aged 21. Two years later he ran for state legislature, lost his job and was rejected
from law school. He bounced back and started a business on borrowed money, but was bankrupt within
a year.

At 28, he was defeated as a speaker of the state legislature. He ran for the US House of Representatives
and lost at age 33. He tried again at age 39, and lost. Not to worry – at age 45 he ran for the US Senate
and lost again. He also lost when he ran for his party's vice presidential nomination at age 47. And again
at the US Senate at age 49. But at the age of 51, he became the president of the US.

So, how's your job hunt going?

It may seem like these superhumans, these titans in their field, these "absolute legends" are nothing like
the young people of today, who seem to be educated to the eyeballs but lack opportunities. But if we can
learn anything from their stories, it's not that success comes from sending as many CVs and cover letters
as you can in a day. It's identify what you love, then bang away at it like a relentless idiot until something
brilliant happens.
Activity 4. Group activity: Skit about applying for a job

Instructions:

1. Choose one from the choices given below. With the help of your family, present in a video a
scenario of applying for a job in the Philippines.

1: Accountancy/Business
2. Agriculture/Fisheries
3: Education
4: Engineering/Architecture
5: Food Industry
6: ICT
7: Law/Politics
8: Media
9: Medical/Healthcare
10. Tourism/Travel agencies/airlines

2. Focus on the challenges that one may face in the process and how to overcome them.
3. Limit your presentation to a maximum of 3 minutes.

Note: you will be rated according to this rubric –

https://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/cur/socstud/frame_found_sr2/g_blms/g-17.pdf

References

The Guardian. (2014, January 31). Five Down and Out Jobseeker Success Stories. Retrieved from
theguardian.com: https://www.theguardian.com/careers/five-down-and-out-jobseeker-
success-stories

Vassel, B. I. (2019, July 30). Six Steps to Getting a Job. Retrieved from media.ldscdn.org: 
https://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/ensign-july-2019/2019-07-0030-six-steps-to-getting-a-
job-eng.pdf