Application guidance Independent guidance
Prepare a thoughtful housing job application
Read person specifications, choose truthful examples and prepare clear supporting statements and interviews for housing and support roles.
A strong application makes it easy to understand how your real experience meets the employer's requirements. Start with the person specification, choose evidence carefully and explain your own contribution. The guides below work together, but each answers a different part of the process.
Work through the application in order
1. Understand the vacancy
Read how to interpret housing job descriptions before drafting. Separate duties from selection criteria, essential requirements from desirable ones, and advertised terms from points that need clarification. Check the deadline and submission instructions directly with the employer.
2. Build an evidence bank
Use the skills evidence worksheet to record what happened, what you did, the result and what you learned. Keep personal and confidential information out of your notes. An example from outside housing may help if you explain both its relevance and its limits.
3. Write to the actual criteria
The supporting statement guide shows how to turn a criterion into a clear, supported paragraph. Its worked example is fictional and labelled; replace it with your own true experience. Follow the employer's word limit and format rather than treating any template as universal.
4. Prepare to discuss the detail
Use housing interview preparation to rehearse examples, anticipate follow-up questions and research the organisation. Good preparation includes questions for the employer about supervision, induction, workload and how success will be assessed.
Before you submit
Check that every claimed qualification, responsibility and outcome is accurate. Make it clear where a result belonged to a team and what your own part was. Remove information that could identify a resident or service user. Read the instructions again and save your own copy of the completed application.
This publication does not handle applications or assess candidates. Send an application only through the employer's verified recruitment route. Our contact page explains that distinction for visitors arriving from an older recruitment link.