Basically what it says in the title. What sort of details should I include about my background? What are things I should play up or play down? How should I phrase my accomplishments? I’d love to hear from people who have done this before.
When I interviewed for and subsequently got a working student position, I was very honest in my application. I tried to give an accurate picture of my strengths–definitely don’t overstate what you can do. The other thing is to think about and be able to identify your weaknesses. (These are true of most job applications though, it’s hard to say without knowing more about your background and the position.)
So for example, I had ridden anything and everything I possibly could, which meant lots of young horses and lots of problem horses, and I could competently start a horse and get it to solid first level before I started my stint. I knew specifically that I was weak in my core/sitting trot, which made bridging the gap to 2nd hard. So I had skills that were helpful to this particular farm (starting the kiddos and manual labor), and in exchange I got lessons on my horse plus a schoolmaster.
I’ve never applied for a horse job, but I’ve had lots of experience applying for jobs in general, and I’ve seen some of what passes for bios up on supposedly professional trainers’ websites. I’ve also been on a lot of hiring committees at work, seen a ton of resumes and letters come through.
Here would be my tips:
Keep it concise and focus on actual accomplishments. I have seen a number of young pros put up a long, wordy bio that starts out with “Suzy has a lifelong love of horses. Suzy had her first pony ride at age 5 on a little pinto shetland named Tiny, and by age 8 she was taking riding lessons, and never looked back.” Um, we all did, including most amateurs. When I see bios that start out with a lot of irrelevant or cutesy details, I figure the pro has very little real accomplishment to describe, and almost always this turns out to be true. “Suzy is committed to turning her lifelong passion for horses into the dream of becoming a trainer.” Yeah, right.
Be truthful, but don’t be overly modest. Describe your strengths, and describe your weaknesses in a way that makes it clear that you have a strategy for overcoming them. If there are gaps in your CV, explain them.
I would accompany the letter with a CV that states your experience and education in chronological order, most recent first, in point form. If you had substantial experience in both horses and other areas, you might want to make these two separate categories. If there isn’t a lot to say, make them one. Start out with the job title, then the company name, full or part time, then the dates worked, then one or two sentences describing the job. I think that a barn owner would be interested to know that you managed, for instance, to hold down a job at Starbucks while also getting good grades in high school and working at the barn.
I think every show you competed in might be a separate item, or maybe if you competed in a series with points accumulating at the end, that season might be a separate item? If I were evaluating an application, I’d want to know the scores and placings, the level competed at, and if you never won anything, I’d kind of want to know why :), if for instance you were taking green horses purely for schooling purposes. “Competed successfully” is just about the widest, least meaningful term I’ve heard. It can mean anything to “we got pony on the trailer, unloaded him at the fair grounds, and went around the arena without either of us getting killed” to “I was the Reserve Junior Champion three years in a row.”
Finally, everyone scanning a pile of job applications gets a bit overwhelmed, and tired of reading very carefully. This is even true for hiring committees made up entirely of English professors! IME, horse people tend to have even less patience for reading long chunks of text, so keep it short, professional, relevant, and to the point. I’d say if you could make the letter one page, that would be great.
I can tell you what not to do: do not send along pictures of yourself riding in shorts and tennis shoes.
Yes, true story. Someone sent me an email wanting help in finding work locally and she sent along pictures of herself wearing shorts and tennis shoes jumping. Even if I had known someone, I would not have sent it on. The moral behind this is be professional in how you present yourself.
So how would one best describe gaps in one’s equitation resume? My actual resume is fine, good work experience, good references. However, all of my equine experience has been in fits and starts. There are people who would give very good references as to what I can do (restarting difficult horses). That said, I’m frequently stuck in situations where I just have to stop riding entirely because I don’t have the money, and I don’t have much in the way of external support.
Just be honest about your riding level. If you took time off, you can mention it. You don’t have to say why. Its not the same as interviewing for a “real” job where they care a little more about work history gaps.
When I was sending out letters looking for WS gigs, I would basically say, “this is what level I ride at right now, and this is what I want from my time working with you.” I also, if it applied, mentioned how I heard about the WS position opening, because sometimes having an in like you know a former student or groom of theirs can get you much further than just randomly sending a letter.
If you have any good video of you riding, either in a lesson or at a show, include it. I never did, and I don’t think it mattered. I still found WS positions.
Another tip for dealing with the gaps is to write a functional resume, rather than a chronological one. Group your experience by type: all the skills related to riding together, skills related to horse health and nutrition together, skills related to barn management together…
A savvy interviewer may realize why you did it that way and ask, but you can always say you were away from horses awhile due to your financial situation and leave it at that.
I think I would mention your overall situation briefly in the letter. You could say that out of the past x years, you have spent a total of yy months riding and schooling horses. However, that riding time was interrupted by the demands of job/ education/ family (whatever it was). My goal in applying for a working student position is to finally be able to dedicate myself full-time to the horse industry, etc etc.
One of the big questions I think a trainer would have about a working student would be the student’s work ethic. I think a trainer would prefer to know that you were working hard and doing well at a non-horse occupation (whether that was a paid job or school), rather than you just got bored with riding, or had a fight with yet another barn manager, or went on a bender and ended up in rehab, etc. etc.
This advice is all the OP talking about herself. OP should open with why the pro is fantastic and has a great program that OP admires. Then OP should think about what the pro really wants in a working student (hint: not talking silver medals here) and explain how she can do that for pro.
They are less interested in how they can help you or your love of horses or whatever else, than in how YOU can help THEM.
if I were looking for a working student position I would be interested in how you obtained your stock, was it home bred or purchased? and what age horses you worked with, then the accomplishments
The only time I ever did a working student position was I wanted to know more about showing under harness so worked a summer with a farm that had 90% of its stock under harness (hackney to roadhorse and everything in between) got to where I could harness a horse fully in a very few minutes
