Culture isn't just for Christmas- it's in job applications too

Some cultural differences are impossible to ignore.?For your average Brit, the idea of Christmas enjoyed on an Australian beach in blazing sunshine is pretty mindblowing. The Japanese eating KFC for their Christmas lunch and the Chileans spending New Year’s Eve in a cemetery rather than a gin bar has us shaking our heads in wonder.

Odd Christmas celebrations are an explicit, observable cultural difference. But many other aspects of culture are not so obvious. A lot of culture lays hidden, like the largest part of an iceberg lurking under water. These features are difficult to observe and can be a mystery to people outside of a culture. Most interestingly, people within a culture often struggle to identify them too!

As a careers practitioner with a specialist interest in international students, I find the impact of culture on the job-hunting process fascinating. I also wonder how culture might affect UK careers professionals supporting international students. My plan is to write a few posts on this topic, but today lets look at a few ways that culture shapes CVs and covering letters.

What can common CV mistakes tell us about culture?

There are some common “mistakes” that international students make on their CVs (which are arguably not mistakes at all, but simply differences in approach from one country to another).

Let's think about photos on a CV. In many countries it is expected to add a photograph to a CV, such as in Switzerland. Swiss employers prefer to see the faces of their candidates- for them it makes the job application more personal, and shows the candidate's professionalism. Perhaps it's also useful to recognise the interviewee in the crowded waiting room!

UK employers have a different perspective. Photographs on CVs are not welcomed* as they go against laws that prevent bias in hiring. UK laws try to promote equality by reducing the chance of attractiveness, gender, age, race etc being part of the hiring decision. *If you are applying for a modelling or acting job photos may be requested.

So- do we just need to teach international students which countries like photos and which don't?

I think the issue is about more than the photo. When we thinking about it from a cultural perspective, applying common practices which work at home but are not expected in the UK can lead to unwanted assumptions from an employer:

"That’s strange to see a photo on a CV..."

"A photo is irrelevant to the job process and distracting from what’s actually important: skills, education, and work experience. Why did they include it?"

"It feels unprofessional- are they unprofessional?"

"I feel uncomfortable. That photo makes me wonder if I’m now more at risk of hiring bias. I wish I didn’t see the photo in the first place."

"This person isn’t familiar with how things work in the UK, how will they manage in the job?…."

With the average UK employer receiving multiple CVs, with limited time, it’s easy to see how a (simple?) cultural misunderstanding like this can result in a CV going straight into the rubbish bin....

If you’re a careers practitioner, it might be helpful to know which countries expect photos on CVs. Now you'll know that students from these countries will need to understand the difference.

If you’re an international student reading this- it’s also worth knowing that photographs can cause issues with ATS tracking software- another reason not to use them on your UK CV!

Culture and cover letters

What about the cover letter? Where and how might culture impact on writing a cover letter?

One of the purposes of a cover letter is to highlight individual key skills, qualities and achievements relevant to the job role.

Some countries have a self-oriented culture. In those countries, it’s common and perfectly acceptable to measure and reward individual performance or achievements. Competitions and incentives to “win” or beat others are encouraged. Teachers and bosses give regular feedback on the positive and negative aspects of a student's / employee’s performance. Recognition is often made publicly. In these countries a multitude of tracking tools and scoreboards measure performance against goals or other groups. Sound familiar? That’s how we do things here in the UK.

However, 80% of the world has a group-oriented culture. Group interests come first. A person’s identity is established by the groups they belong to, not by their individual skills and achievements. For group-orientated cultures, results are gained collectively. Rewarding only one member of a team is not common, and individual feedback is not the norm.

Careers professionals- I know you are already thinking about how this might have an impact on a student's ability to write a cover letter. Someone from a self-orientated culture might find it easy to look back and pinpoint individual achievements and times they have been recognised by others. It might not be too hard to craft a letter. But for an international student coming from a group-orientated culture- can you see why it might be harder to pick out those individual skills and achievements that form part of a letter?

Culture and the art of letter writing

A really interesting study* highlighted some key differences between business letters written by people from different countries. They found a strong difference between writing with a We- Orientation vs. writing with a You-Orientation. Persian letter writers wrote in detail about themselves and their achievements in order to show their value. English letter writers wrote instead about the needs and interests of the reader and how they could fulfil those needs. Having read thousands of cover letters by international students, I can definitely relate to this difference in approach.

The study also showed another important difference that I recognise from reading cover letters from international students- the level of formality. Iranians from the study tended to adopt a very formal style in their letters. They used honorific words frequently (It would be my honour to../ I would be humbled to…). English and American letter writers did not use formal language so much; but wrote in a conversational tone to find common ground with the reader.

What happens when an employer receives a cover letter that focuses only on the student and is written in an unusual, unexpected style?

How can international students learn these things?

If one of the purposes of a job application is to show the ability to write in a professional style, what happens when that professional style is not the same as it would be in your home country? How do you learn the cultural underpinnings of job hunting?

And if you're a careers professional, how can you explain these cultural adjustments for international students that want to find work in the UK?

I'll be sharing my thoughts on that later! In the meantime, would love to hear yours- why not leave me a comment below?

* Fatemeh Heidari Ghezeljeh, Mohamad Raouf Moini, The Importance of Cross-Cultural Awareness in Writing Sales Promotion Letters, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 70, 2013.