You need a job and a media company seeking to employ staff is asking for a motivation letter along with your application.
What has a motivation letter got to do with applying for a job? What else could be your motivation apart from wanting a job?
It’s true that your main reason for wanting to apply for the vacancy may be to get a job and not necessarily because you like the company, but organizations want to be sure they hire people who are motivated beyond just their qualifications and need for the job.
They want to get a sense of the kind of person, personality or professional you are. They want to know how passionate you are about your work and what drives you.
They need to know how your essence connects with what the goals of their company are and what value you can bring in addition to your qualifications.
They want to know your personal vision and mission that guides you in making decisions.
Can’t you pretend to be what you are not and tell what appears to be a believable story just to get the job? It’s possible, but a motivation letter is expected to contain real examples and reference that can confirm that you are what you say you are.
If you claim to be passionate about reporting, for example, you need to cite an instance of how your passion has made you go all out to do some outstanding reports even if you didn’t succeed as much as you wanted due to some limitation.
Even if you don’t have work experience like the vacancy that inspired this article stated, what have you done in any way to prepare yourself for an opportunity like this?
The motivation letter is not exactly the same as the cover letter for applications and it’s not supposed to be too long. It should be long and short enough like a skirt. Not too long beyond the kneels, but short enough to cover the subject matter.
Remember, for a newspaper job, your motivation letter may well be a test of how well you write. How creative you are, how good you are as a storyteller and how compelling your writing can be. Watch your grammar and don’t be careless with your spellings.
Beyond what you are saying in your motivation, your style of writing says a lot about you and your suitability for the position you are applying for
Here is a link to more practical guidelines on writing a motivation letter. Best of luck with your application.
