Assessing the competency of pharmacists in writing effective … – BMC Medical Education

This study included 592 participants. While the cover letter is an important document that introduces the CVs/job applications [14, 36], only 206 out of the 592 participants included English cover letters, 89 of the cover letters were tailored, and 166 were structured. Furthermore, less than half of the cover letters (17.2% of the total participants) had readability index scores within the target category (score of 7–12) and females submitted more complex cover letters with higher readability index scores than males. Generally, gender had been identified as a factor that influences the readability index for paragraphs written by Jordanian students; female students had higher readability than males. The readability index has been widely used to measure textual difficulties [25] in education and assessment of the English written language [8, 9, 11, 13, 14]. Readability is concerned with the document layout and comprehensibility or understandability of written texts [37]. Therefore, these results suggest that more than 50% of the participants who provided cover letters (n = 206) had poor layout and comprehensibility cover letters.

Over 78% of the participants included personal statements and over 94% provided lists of skills. However, only 23% of the participants who provided lists of skills had these skills tailored to the advertised Job. The personal statement is an important document to persuade the reader to positively consider the qualifications, key traits, experiences, and aspirations of the applicant [38], and provide the applicants with the opportunity to highlight the most important skills and talents [7, 11, 14]. Taking into consideration that less than 22% of the total participants customized the personal statement to the advertised job indicates that participants may have been using fixed templates for the personal statements and misjudged the value of the personal statements to highlight their experience. However, further investigation and interviews with participants may assist in determining the reasons. The readability index of the personal statements confirmed the poor layout and comprehensibility of the participants’ job applications, as less than 17% of the participants who provided personal statements (n = 456) had readability index scores within the target category (score of 7–12).

Our results showed that providing a cover letter with the participants’ application had a statistically significant association with the type of personal photo, University grade level, and CV file format. Participants who submitted official type photos in PDF format CV and did not provide the University grade levels are more likely to provide cover letters as part of their job application than others. To date, there is no evidence to explain this association. The value of providing a photo with the job application has been argued with no consensus agreement and the format of the CV file and providing the University grade levels have not been discussed in the literature. However, it is feasible to propose that applicants who provided an official type of photo in PDF format CV may have a better understanding of the value of the cover letter, and those who did not provide the University grade levels allowed themselves to explain these grades in the cover letter. Furthermore, more factors had a significant association with providing a personal statement than providing a cover letter. Participants who used a professional CV template used the same font consistently, included a list of skills, did not include a referees list, submitted a PDF format CV, and did not provide a structured cover letter are more likely to provide personal statements as part of their job application than others. These findings emphasize our suggestion that those who provide a cover letter and personal statements (approximately 27.2 of the total participants (n = 592)) have satisfactory knowledge of how to write job applications for pharmacists’.

The findings of our research are not surprising, especially since the English language is a second language in Jordan. These issues of cover letters and personal statement writing exist even in countries where English is the native language. According to CareerBuilder survey 61% of hiring managers automatically dismiss a candidate with spelling and typo errors in their job applications [39]. Those managers identified the reasons for instant rejections of the job applications to be spelling mistakes, copying wording from the job ad, and inappropriate email addresses [39]. Therefore, applicants must consider these points during the job application process to avoid early rejection. Furthermore, a recent report by Andrew Hunter confirmed that in the United Kingdom (UK) more than 9 out of 10 CVs contain spelling errors [40]. Although the principal ruling is that the candidates did not make sufficient effort for the application process, this point is controversial. It can be argued that applicants may have been relying on their spell checker which was disabled. More importantly, others may debate that applicants who had mini typos could be the perfect candidate for the job [39]. However, taking into consideration that some job applications may end up in the shredder due to minor typos or grammatical mistakes, the applicant should pay attention to these points to maximize their opportunities for an interview. Although the CareerBuilder survey and Andrew Hunter’s are based on native English-speaking countries, they may indicate the mentality of recruiters in general. Especially, since English is the official language used in pharmaceutical professional communication in Jordan [16].

There is an increasing demand to integrate skills like professional communication and teamwork coordination [41], virtual skills and digital proficiency [42], Innovation skills [43], and professional interpersonal communication [3, 44], in addition to professional writing for both pharmacists and students. Although there is limited literature on assessing students’ retention of career skills knowledge and their perceived importance, a recent study confirmed that tailored workshops notably improve awareness of these skills [6]. Additionally, other studies endorsed the practical benefits gained through mastering virtual skills [42], and collaborative communication [41].

The findings of our study indicate that most Jordanian pharmacists do not submit a strong job application that includes vital components such as cover letters and personal statements. Therefore, the paper highlights the importance of integrating these skills within pharmacy curriculums to enhance alumni students’ career applications and developments.

Strengths and limitations

To our knowledge, this is the first study investigating the pharmacists’ cover letters and personal statements writing skills for job applications using the readability index and examining the association between the readability index and other variables. The findings highlight several uninvestigated areas such as pharmacist cover letters and personal statements writing skills and the relationship between several factors and the readability index of these two documents. Despite these important strengths, this study has some limitations, such as the lack of qualitative data to determine the reasons behind Jordanian pharmacists’ limited job application writing skills. Therefore, future studies should include qualitative analysis of participant interviews to bridge this gap. In spite of the quantitative benefits of using readability indices, a general limitation of the readability indices is that they cannot judge the cohesion, clarity of the meaning, vocabulary quality, and understandability [25, 26, 28, 29].