Wild Stab in the Dark

[sophie_1003]

Has anyone had to apply for a teaching post using the Leicestershire County Council application form? I'm having problems filling it in on the computer and was wondering if there is a trick to it!

[scotman]

no. Do you have a link to form?

[sophie_1003]

http://www.eteach.com...x?VacNo=389080&Page=1
There's one you can download on this page; it's just a Word docment but it doesn't let you put spaces between things so when I typed about job responsibilities it's quite long and when I type the date for the next job it doesn't line up with the job title; if that makes any sense at all!

[sherrardk]

Could you contact Leicester LEA tomorrow and ask them if there is a problem?

[sophie_1003]

I don't think there's a problem with it; just the standard formatting on it; but might ring them to see if they could send a more user friendly one. It does have the option for filling in by hand I just prefer not to!

[scotman]

OK

I have downloaded the Application. It is an MS Word document set up with protected form fields. What exactly is causing you difficulty?

[sophie_1003]

Where it has a section for 'Previous Employment' it has the grey bits where you have to type the dates.
My description of my responsibilities for the first post I'm listing ends up being longer than the space allowed between the grey bit for the date on that job and the grey bit for the date on the next job.
I pressed 'Enter' so that the date for the second job would line up with the Job Title, Name of School etc but as soon as I typed in the date it 'jumped' back up to the original position; it doesn't do that if I type June 2008 as opposed to 06/2008 but I would rather keep the date in the format they are asking for.

[sophie_1003]

It might be Ok; think if I press Enter after first date as opposed to before second date it works!

[sophie_1003]

Oh; no that doesn't work either!

[scotman]

I see the problem. The form is not ideally constructed in that area.
Unfortunately I don't see any easy way round it. Is it really not possible to fit the 'additional responsibilities' into the space allocated?

You could type up additional sheets and put reference to them on the form. I would first contact the Council Dept, explain your problem, and see what they suggest.

[sophie_1003]

I've tried but have deleted all but what I feel I absolutely need to include and it's still a bit long; will contact them tomorrow to see if they have one without such restrictive formatting!

[sophie_1003]

Have managed to get it down short enough; doesn't sound half as good now though!

[scotman]

That section of the form has space for 4 previous employers. Are you intending to supply 4 sets of info?

[sophie_1003]

Well am actually putting in school placements from degree course but yes there are 4, plus another one I want to include from when I worked at a nursery; was thinking I'll have to supply that on a separate piece of paper but there's another failing on the application form- it doesn't have a box to tick to say I've done so!

[sophie_1003]

Will definitely have to ring Leics; second job; the address is too long so even though the description is short enough the dates still don't line up! Whoever designed this thing wasn't feeling very helpful!

[scotman]

The font in that section is Arial 11 point. How small would you need it to be so that you could get all you want to fit the space given?
I would create table in separate document with column at the appropriate width(5.25cm) set font Arial 11 and lay it out in that to see how much height you need.

[sophie_1003]

May be misunderstanding you but when I paste the information back in the font automatically changes to Arial 11 again?

[scotman]

My tests show that, using 11 point, you have 7 lines of text available. If you reduce to 9 point that goes up to 9 lines. Is 9 lines of 9 point at the appropriate column width enough?

[sophie_1003]

Not sure; you've lost me a bit there!
Thank you very much for all the help by the way!

[karenmac60]

We are running a course on finding employment just now and a section covers filling out online applications. I was just talking to the trainer last night about how bad so many online application forms are - he was telling me about sites that have boxes for you to type details into but they have just drawn a box and there is no way to click within it and other howlers. I think a lot of companies don't know what they are doing or don't think things through - if it looks ok that's enough for them!

[sophie_1003]

Lol Karen; I can at least type in this one!