A career description is not a cover letter — the three documents an experienced applicant needs

Three documents, three different questions

One line each.

• CV — "what did you do", as a list of facts: employer, dates, position, education, qualifications, in a verifiable form. It is not the place for interpretation or reflection.
• Career description — "how did you do it and what came of it". The work, your own contribution and the outcome, written project by project.
• Cover letter — "why this company, this role". Motivation and the fit between your direction and theirs.

What a recruiter checks first in an experienced hire's application is usually the second one, because they are trying to establish whether this person can do the job from day one. If the career description slot instead contains a personal history or a statement of ambition, there is nothing to make that judgement from.

Listing duties is not describing a career

The most common form is a document that lists assigned duties: "responsible for monthly settlement", "customer service and complaint handling". Writing like this is indistinguishable from a copy of the job description, because ten applicants for the same role will produce almost identical sentences.

A career description has to go one layer deeper. It sets out what the situation was, what you judged and did within it, and what changed as a result. The framework commonly used is situation, task, action, result.

"Responsible for monthly settlement", for example, becomes this: monthly closing was consistently running late; the delay was traced to when data was collected from other teams; a standard collection template was introduced along with a reminder three days before the deadline; and the closing date moved earlier as a result. The same work becomes a different document once judgement and intervention are visible.

How to turn results into numbers

"Use numbers" is common advice, but many people find they have no numbers to use — especially in roles that do not deal with direct indicators such as revenue. In that case, look for an axis other than absolute amounts.

• Time — processing time, or the number of days a task used to take before a deadline
• Frequency — changes in errors, rework or enquiries
• Scale — cases handled, people, clients, or the size of a budget managed
• Proportion — percentage change where absolute figures cannot be disclosed

Sometimes the figures are confidential. In that case, convert them into a range or a percentage and say so. A phrasing such as "exact figures are confidential, but a double-digit reduction year on year" is entirely standard. Inventing numbers is the most dangerous option. One question about the basis at interview exposes it, and the credibility of the whole application goes with it.

Read the job advert backwards

People who write good career descriptions have one thing in common: they take the advert apart first. The duties and requirements in a job advert are a list of the work the employer intends the hire to do. The application should therefore be an answer to that list.

In practice: write out the requirements item by item, then attach one line of your own experience to each. Where an item has nothing against it, fill the gap with adjacent experience — or consider whether this is the right advert at all.

It also matters to align your vocabulary with the advert. The same work goes by different names at different companies, and using the term you used internally leaves the recruiter unable to make the connection. The same applies to the job description widely used in Korean public sector hiring: using the same wording as its listed competency units reduces the reader's effort.

Not losing marks on form

Good content can still be beaten on form. A few rules cover it.

• If the company provides a template, use it. Assuming a free format looks more diligent is usually a loss.
• Order most recent first. Recent experience is what the recruiter wants to see.
• Group by project. Grouping only by employer blurs what you actually did.
• Separate team results from your contribution. If everything is "our team achieved", your own role disappears.
• Write to the length that stays readable. Longer is not better; three or four well-organised projects beat an exhaustive list.

We suggest reading it aloud once before submitting. Sentences that run out of breath and expressions that repeat both surface immediately.

Where to get a template

There is no need to spend time hunting for a format. Work24 (work24.go.kr) provides CV-building tools and related forms, and registering as a job seeker means they carry through the rest of the process. The more roles you apply for, the more efficient it is to build one solid base document and change only the front section for each advert.

If you are applying as a graduate, or your career is short enough that there are few projects to describe, the weight of the application shifts towards the cover letter. That structure is set out separately in how to write a cover letter. The key is not to write the two documents the same way.

Frequently asked questions

Q1. Can the career description and CV be one file?

Follow the format the company asks for. If separate submission is not required, placing both in one file with clearly separated sections is fine. Just do not let the two parts blur into each other.

Q2. Should I include a job I held only briefly?

It is safer not to omit employment that appears in your social insurance record. Where the period was short, a brief note on the reason reduces misunderstanding.

Q3. Do I have to state why I left each job?

Not at length, unless asked. It does usually come up at interview, though, so it is worth having a one-sentence version ready.

Q4. My duties kept changing and I cannot organise them.

There is an alternative to chronological order: group by competency. Combine work repeated across employers into a single heading and place the examples underneath, and the sprawl reduces.

Q5. Will following this get me through?

Whether an application succeeds depends on the size of the intake, the competition and the fit with the role. This article is general guidance on the purpose and structure of the documents and does not guarantee any outcome. Check the advert and required forms of the organisation you are applying to first.