21 Lower Kent Ridge Road
Singapore 119077
A0085616@nus.edu.sg
September 10, 2012
The Human Resource Manager
Ministry of Home Affairs
My SingPost Box 880117
Singapore 919191
Dear Ms Ang,
I am writing to express my interest in the position as a full-time translator for your company. This is in response to the advertisement posted on the Careers@Gov website on 1st September 2012.
As a computer-engineering undergraduate, I am equipped with the essential computer skills needed to be familiar with the tools and software used for translation by your organisation. More importantly, I have great interest in languages, reading and writing. The university module, Basic Translation, mainly exposed me to the various forms of basic translation. I also benefited from the additional practices that further trained and enhanced my translation skills beyond the fundamental objectives.
Being trained in relevant areas of knowledge required for this position, I believe that this will enable me to learn quickly and pick up information faster during the trainings provided by your organisation.
Furthermore, I had the opportunity to enhance my basic writing and communication skills in conversation with customers, through my previous work at AETOS. Similarly, having been involved in the SHF Flag Day, I had the chance to interact and train my communication skills. These allowed me to gain an insight into how translation can affect people’s interpretation of information, and therefore, to come up with more appropriate versions of translation.
I would appreciate the opportunity to grow not only as an employee but also as a student and to gain experience in the course of contributing to your organization. I believe my enthusiasm and willingness to learn will serve further as an asset to your company.
Please contact me if you require any further details. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much.
Yours Sincerely,
Lim Huiyun
Enclosure
Hi Hui Yun,
ReplyDeleteI am not very familiar with how a translator performs his job in this modern-era. The skills learnt from computer engineering seems interesting and it made me feel that I want to know more of how you can link computing and translation. Other than that, the rest seem normal to me, like the experience of communicating with others in an event. Maybe you can work on the creative side of being a translator? just a suggestion.
Min Thu
Hello HuiYun,
ReplyDeleteIt is a nice piece of application letter and i do agree with Minthu that it would be really interesting to see what comes out from the combination of your skills in computer engineering and translation! I guess you could market yourself such that a certain computing skill that you possessed put you on an edge over the others, maybe something like,"Not only can i provide basic translation like other translators, my niche in creating workable programs allows me to help out in the creation of the programs used". I do not know if such a thing is feasible,but i think you get my point? haha!
Shiying
Hi Huiyun,
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delay in replying to your blog post, Huiyun.
There are some feedback that I wish to share on how I think this cover letter can be improved:
a. It is necessary to show your best and most relevant qualification first and the rest later. Since you are applying for translator job, I think it is better to put your experience in AETOS and SHF Flag Day first.
b. You also need to expand more on your role in AETOS. What is AETOS? What exactly do you do there such that you enhance your writing and communication skills? How does this skill translate to skills that relevant in translation-related work for the ministry?
c. You also need to be more specific on your experience in SHF Flag Day and how the experience makes you qualified for the employment and how you can use the experience to contribute to the organization.
d. It is crucial that you list formal qualification which shows that you have proficiency in the language that you are applying to be translator of. The employer needs to know that you are formally qualified. Perhaps you can list your grade from the O or A level certificate if the language is your mother tongue.
I hope this helps.
All the best
Hi Hui Yun,
ReplyDeleteThis was a good, professionally written cover letter. I share the view that it would definitely be interesting to see how your linguistic skills and computer engineering skills can come together to form a new niche that is uniquely yours. This is definitely a fundamental personal branding skill that I need to brush up on.
As a sidenote, you might not want to refer to the ministry as a company, like in your first sentence.
Having previously been in the ministry for my NS stint, I can tell you that secretaries who can write good, succinct, informative minutes are definitely in demand. So, on top of your translating skills, you could bring up your expertise in transcribing skills as well to increase your value to this particular employer.
AETOS is an auxiliary police force and MHA works closely with AETOS in their security operations on a daily basis. I think you could emphasize your working experience with AETOS for added advantage.
For the purposes of this post, you might need to include a small glossary of unusual terms, like AETOS. While you, the ministry and I understand the acronym, other readers might not.
Thanks for posting and all the best for your application!