IELTS Job Application Letter: A Full General Training Task 1 Answer, Marked

A job application is one of the formal letter tasks that appears in IELTS General Training Writing Task 1. Candidates lose marks on it in a predictable way: they write a real covering letter, the kind they would send to a real employer, and forget that the exam task gives them three specific points to cover.

The three bullet points are the task. Answering two of them well and skipping the third caps Task Achievement, which is the criterion that measures whether you did what was asked. This post works through one complete letter and shows the reasoning behind each criterion, including the two sentences that hold it below band 8.

The task shape

A job application task gives you a short situation and three bullet points. The wording varies, but the shape is consistent. Here is a typical one.

You have seen an advertisement for a part time job at a local sports centre. Write a letter to the manager. In your letter: 1. explain which job you are applying for 2. describe your relevant experience 3. say when you are available to start

You have about 20 minutes and a minimum of 150 words. There is no upper limit, but a letter over about 220 words is usually repeating itself.

Two decisions come before writing. First, the register. You do not know this manager's name, so this is a formal letter: Dear Sir or Madam at the top, Yours faithfully at the bottom. Second, the order. Answer the bullets in the order they are given. The marker is reading for three things and you make that easy by putting them where they are expected.

The full letter

Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to apply for the part time position at the Riverside Sports Centre, which was advertised in the Evening Post on 14 October. I would like to be considered for the role of weekend reception assistant. I have relevant experience in a similar environment. For the past two years I have worked on Saturdays at the university swimming pool, where my duties included taking bookings by telephone, issuing membership cards and handling cash at the end of each shift. I also dealt with complaints from members, which taught me to stay calm when a customer is angry. In addition, I hold a current first aid certificate, which I understand is required for staff working near the pool. I am available to begin work from the first week of November. My university timetable leaves me free on Saturdays and Sundays, and I could also cover weekday evenings after six o'clock during the holidays. I would be able to attend an interview at any time that is convenient for you. I would welcome the opportunity to discuss my application in person. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully, Daniel Ortega

That is 193 words, which is comfortable for 20 minutes.

Why each paragraph is built that way

Paragraph one names the job and the source. The first bullet asks which job you are applying for, and a surprising number of answers never say. I am writing about the job you advertised does not name it. Naming the role and where you saw it also gives the letter a reason to exist, which is what the opening of a formal letter is for.

Paragraph two gives concrete duties, not adjectives. Compare these two sentences.

The right hand column is not more advanced English. It is more specific English. Lexical Resource rewards the precise word over the impressive word, and issuing membership cards is precise in a way that doing various tasks is not.

Paragraph three answers the availability bullet with dates. I can start soon is not an answer. From the first week of November is. The extra sentence about weekday evenings is doing useful work: it shows a range of availability without being asked, which reads as a real application rather than a form filled in.

Where this letter sits, and the two sentences holding it down

Estimating a band on your own work is guesswork, but the reasoning is worth seeing.

The two sentences that hold it down are both in the last paragraph. I would be able to attend an interview at any time that is convenient for you and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss my application in person say nearly the same thing twice, in nearly the same grammar. A letter that ends with two polite sentences of identical shape has stopped developing and started filling space.

The fix is to cut one and let the other close the letter. That costs 14 words from a letter that has 40 to spare, and it removes a repetition that both Coherence and Lexical Resource can see.

The four mistakes that cost the most

1. Writing a CV instead of a letter. Bullet lists of previous jobs are not what the task asks for. Use sentences.
2. Inventing a name for the reader. If the task does not give you a name, do not create one. Dear Mr Smith when no Mr Smith exists is a register error, and it pairs with the wrong closing.
3. Mismatching the opening and the closing. Dear Sir or Madam takes Yours faithfully. Dear Mr Patel takes Yours sincerely. Getting this pair wrong is the single most common formal letter error.
4. Skipping a bullet because you ran out of room. Three short answers beat two long ones. Task Achievement counts the bullets.

Do this today

Write the second paragraph only, the experience one, for the task at the top of this page. Give yourself eight minutes and a rule: three specific duties, each with a noun that names a real activity. No adjectives about yourself.

Then read it back and ask whether a stranger could picture what you did on a Saturday morning. If they could, the paragraph is doing its job. You can paste the finished letter into Bandly for an estimate of where each of the four criteria sits, which is a quicker way to spot a repeated sentence shape than reading your own writing again.