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Hi all
I am looking at applying for a Msc at university but am uncertain how to structure my cv as the course I am looking at applying is different to the office day job and was wondering if anyone has gone this way and have advice?
I do have a relevant qualification and 5 years experience to the course which will be on the first page as well as applicable skills but am unsure how to display the office jobs as my initial degree was in the 90's so have had several since then!
I was thinking of listing the jobs in chronological order inc dates on the second page so that there aren’t gaps.
Does the above sound alright or is there a better way?
Thanks
Nss
You're a mature student and can demonstrate you have funding to pay for it or will be paying yourself up front? Congratulations, you're in!
Think of yourself more as a customer with options rather than someone who has to jump through hoops. I bet you could even get their admissions dept to help write your application.
I did an MSc as a mature student. It was way less selective than I expected. TBH if you are paying your own course fees they didn't really care.
Thanks for the replies. I thought it would be a very formal process as some uni's mention interviews before an offer is made so felt to me more like a potential job interview.Â
very much this, they also need you, there will be minimum numbers needed for the course to be viable to run, drop out rate is horrendous
for example, I'm on a MSc course at the minute, as a mature student (40's), a brief chat with a lecturer the other week suggested for a cohort of 17, they have 400+ applications, and they have to offer 40+ places to secure the needed 17 come start dates in September
it's very much like a job interview, personal statement and a CV, my interview was over teams circa 18 months ago, so out of the Covid bubble, and the uni is only 30 miles away so certainly could have gone in person,
there are lots of good YouTube resources with people making a living pointing you in the right direction, have a search
Yes, that was the impression I got before applying too. But that wasn't the reality. The only interview I had was for funded places and it was the funding body not the course admissions team that did the interview.
No harm in taking it seriously, and your suggested layout looks fine to me - aim to make it as clear as possible what you've been doing.
try and arrange a chat with the course leader if you haven't already. I'd just list the jobs and use the personal statement to draw the relevant experience to the course and what you want to get out of doing it.
I'm on an MSc at the moment so can speak a bit from my experience. I had a chat with the course leader before applying to figure out if we'd be a good fit. His first bit of business was to make sure I met the academic requirements of the course because that's the biggest criterion - I think perhaps they have to demonstrate a certain level of academic selectiveness to qualify for MSc status. Apart fomr that, he just wanted evidence that I could learn stuff, manage workloads, etc.
What I'd do I think is, life history in reverse chronological order (date order is weird) but pull out the salient points into a one-liner intro at the top instead of the usual meaningless twaddle about how you "can work alone or in a team" that everyone writes.
the course I am looking at applying is different to the office day job
Hm, if it was exactly the same then you wouldn't need the qualification? 😁
I've been the director of a masters programme and dealt with 'mature' admissions and my advice is:
- don't worry about the structure of the CV per se but make sure any job descriptions focus on what you did skill-wise, rather than technical terms.acronyms/generic labels. We want to know what you did, how you handled data/people/problems.
- the personal statement is as important because if you are borderline then it needs to state a clear desire to learn new skills, specific to the masters, and to be ready to develop in new directions.
In short, the problems we've had with mature students - and thus our concerns - is that they sounded good on paper but couldn't adapt/think in new ways and so didn't deliver.
Thank you all for your comments. They are all very helpful and useful.
Not all MSc courses are the same, many are what has been described above, but some are fully booked each year and this can be selective. Â Others while not fully booked, have industrial links for their students and so are more selective to make sure the links are well preserved.
1. Cover letter which links your skills, interests and how you plan to use the qualification when you achieve it.
2. CV with education and relevant work experience.
3. Identified specific project experience which you think might be relevant.
4. Skills, both technical and transferable.
5. Personal interests, especially if they overlap with the field or help you in other ways.
6. Make sure any social media, especially professional media is up to date. Â I always look.