You are all students; many of you are entering new fields and starting new careers. If you don't have experience in your field, don't panic! We can make the most of your education, jobs, volunteer work, and interests by proving their relevance in your cover letter. Here are some tips on pitching non-field experiences for your own field.
The first step is to look through your master ad and brainstorm how your experiences fulfil the requirements - be creative.
I will use the education field for my examples below.
Perhaps the ads ask for experience with classroom management but you've never run a class. Well, what could be similar to classroom management? What responsibilities are implied? What skills are necessary?
Classroom management includes leadership, organization, delegation, supervision, stewardship, behaviour management, confidence, etc etc. The task itself is to look after a group of students and maintain a positive, efficient environment.
So, when in your life have you done similar tasks? Think about a situation where you held a leadership role or were in charge of a team. Maybe you have experience working with groups of adults as a supervisor. Maybe you volunteered at a summer camp.
Let's say you'll be working with vulnerable people - children, especially those with disabilities or atypicalities. Think of experiences you've had helping other vulnerable groups, like seniors, animals, the sick, the oppressed. Maybe you have a background in homecare, or in nursing, or in social work, or some other caring profession. Maybe you are an advocate in your community.
For character qualities, consider the traits of a great educator - this is part of the benefit of the interview exercise. Then try to provide examples of times you demonstrated these characteristics.
If you want to say you're patient, you could give an example of a difficult or busy situation where you stayed calm. Or you could mention a job you had where actively listening to customers was essential. Maybe you can think of a time you needed to resolve a conflict.
Another trick is to incorporate language or concepts from your field. Make sure you're using the terms correctly! The idea here is to demonstrate your understanding and familiarity with the field through language itself.
If, for example, I wanted to talk about my ability to teach English as a Second Language, I could mention my academic familiarity with semantic theory and psycholinguistics. Neither of these would show direct experience teaching ESL, but they still show my knowledge of the topic.
Another example would be to apply the jargon (language specific to your field) to experiences outside your field. For instance, you need to create individualized lesson plans tailored to student needs. Maybe you have experience agendas for meetings or events. You could pitch this experience something like this:
"As a receptionist, I was responsible for creating effective meeting agendas with appropriate action items for each team member. This experience prepared me to tailor individual lesson plans for students based on their needs and goals."
Maybe you want to talk about keeping kids and staff safe. You could use an example from a job where maintaining safety, health, or other standards was really important.
Maybe you want to show your skill in a certain area of activities, like art or sports. Share your hobbies and education from outside the field. You're a well-rounded person! The best cover letters give the reader a sense of your personality.
To sum up, you want to use examples from your experience to show that even if you are new to the field, you have done similar tasks and had similar responsibilities in other contexts.