How To Analyze Job Vacancy In Norway

by Dejan Mladenovic | Last Updated: April 30, 2021

Job Vacancy Analysis is very important and should be conducted before applying for the position. As result, this will give you valuable information about the right candidate for the position.

As you read the job advertisement you want to consider two things:

• will you spend time to apply,
• what should you take out from the job advertisement and emphasize in your cover letter and resume to stand out from the other candidates?

Maybe you are wondering why bother and why do you need to analyze job advertisements. Let me give you a few reasons why it is useful to do analysis.

How To Use Analyzed Information

You can use analyzed information:

• as input for writing Elevator Pitch
• in the phone call to the job advertisement contact person
• use missing information as potential Questions to the contact person
• while writing a tailored Cover Letter
• while writing a tailored Resume (CV)
• in the Job Interview

If you do not understand the meaning of the listed items or some of the terms are not familiar to you do not worry there is a link for each of them with their own articles where you can read more and learn in more depth.

Job Vacancy In Norway – Sections

A typical job advertisement in Norway is organized in several sections:

Job Vacancy Sections

• Business presentation
• Position summary and the explanation why a new coworker is needed
• Essential Duties and Responsibilities (Arbeidsoppgaver)
• Required Qualifications (Kvalifikasjoner – må ha)
• Desired Qualifications (Kvalifikasjoner – ønsker)
• Personal Attributes (Personlige egenskaper)
• Companies offer (Vi tilbyr)
• About Employer (Om arbeidsgiveren)

As you read each of the sections in the Job advertisement you want to ask yourself certain questions and look for the answers. We will go through each of the job vacancy sections in the rest of this post. Moreover, we will see which questions are right to ask for each of the sections.

If the answer is not possible to find or is not clear as you wish to be that is a good candidate to be marked as a question. You will ask marked questions in the phone call that follows. Don’t worry you do not need to call immediately but very soon.

Short Presentation of Business

In this section, you can usually read about the company’s vision and values. As part of the assessment you will ask yourself:

• Is this something that fits you?

Position Summary

This section will usually give you answers to the following questions:

• Why they need a new coworker?
• What is the business situation?
• What is expecting you like as a challenge?

Duties & Responsibilities

This is one of the most important sections. So needs your attention to notice the following:

• Are many or just a few different tasks presented?
• Which tasks are the most important?
• Which tasks are covered with your experience?

Qualifications (Needed and Wanted)

Another crucial section in your analysis where you need to separate a must-have from a wish to have qualifications.

The most important assessments in this section to decide whether you should spend time and apply for this position are:

• Your experience does NOT cover mandatory task
  • SKIP – MOVE ON
• Your experience does NOT cover wish list tasks
  • YOU CAN APPLY

Personal Attributes

Read through the advertisement several times. Focus to find all the personal attributes expected from the employer and that the right candidate needs to possess.

Maybe they will ask you to be structured, analytical, goal-oriented, or something else.

Employer’s Offer

Usually, employers will mention office location if attractive, exciting projects to work with, pension plan, competitive salary, other benefits.

Here you should ask yourself:

• Is this offer what you want.

About Employer

This section is a short presentation of the company.

Try to read between the lines while analyzing the job advertisement. For example, maybe this advertisement is for 10 positions. Why they need 10 positions? Is it maybe because they are booming business. However, maybe because they laid off personal and now rehire new personal since they made the wrong judgment.

Job Vacancy Analysis Form

While you read, analyze, and look for answers to the above questions in a job advertisement it is smart to write down your findings and thoughts. So we have created the Word document Job Vacancy Analysis Form that you can download and use in your own analysis.

Get our FREE template Word document for Job Vacancy Analysis.

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How To Fill Out Job Vacancy Analysis Form

The form has been designed to be filled out in the way Job advertisements’ sections have been written so it is a lot easier to follow along as you read it.

Just in case you struggle to complete some sections such as your contribution, motivation, and why choose me they can be completed later after a phone call to the contact person when you have a more clear picture of what business needs are and what kind of candidate employer is looking for.

Duties & Responsibilities

• List Duties & Responsibilities
• Write professional & personal contributions

Professional Qualifications

• List Professional Qualifications
• Is it MUST or SHOULD have qualification
• Do you have or not the qualification?
• Comment important notices
• Comment doubts or questions

Personal Qualifications

• List Personal Qualifications
• Is it MUST or SHOULD have qualification
• Do you have or not the qualification?
• Comment important notices
• Comment doubts or questions

Motivation

• List motivation factors for the position
• Rate motivation (1-10)
• Write Comments

Choose Me

Why should an employer choose me?

Employer’s Offer

List Employer’s offers

Questions

List at least two questions.

EXAMPLE – JOB VACANCY ANALYSIS

We have prepared an example Job Vacancy with Analysis as we have shown to you. You will get in (.zip file) two Word documents. One is a Job Vacancy Sample (In Norwegian) and the other Word document is the Job Vacancy Analysis Form filled with the date from the Sample.

This will help you to get a sense of how Norwegian Job Vacancy is structured. In addition, how you should gather the data and fill out the form so you can start analyzing the collected data.

Get our FREE Job Vacancy Analysis Example Word Documents.

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What To Do With Data (How To Analyze)

After you have read the Job Advertisement several times. In addition, written different pieces of information from it into the Job Vacancy Analysis Form. Now is the time to do something with this data and see how the data is valuable.

What you want to do is to match collected data with your own profile, let me show what we mean.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities match with Contributions

You should match collected Duties and Responsibilities with your contributions from the past working and life experience.

The best way to present that is by using the STAR presentation technique as we have described in the article Know Your Contributions To The Company.

Professional Qualifications match with Formal and Real Competencies

For all the qualifications that can be documented, you should prepare the documents to back them up or be prepared to compensate with working experience if you cannot document or do not have the document.

All the necessary documents we have covered in the post Checklist – Which Documents Should You Hand In With Your Job Application In Norway.

If you have done the Competence Cornerstones assessment you can with ease do this part as we have explained in the post Learn To Use Competencies Cornerstones For Job Search In Norway.

Personal Qualifications match with Strengths and Social Skills

Be sure to present personal characteristics (attributes) as your strengths and social skills in a Value Based Communication fashion as we have described in the post Learn Value Based Communication.

Motivation

If you struggle to explain the motivation factors for the positions in Job Vacancy please read the posts Map Your Job Context Motivation where you will get valuable tips and guides on how to be able to present your motivation while applying for the job position.

Why Choose Me?

Find among your working experience, education, strengths, and social skills the qualities that make you the right candidate for the job and how an employer will benefit from hiring you.

Employer’s offer match with your own Values and Attitude

Check if the employer’s offer, mission and vision statements, reputation on the job market is matching with your own values and attitudes and what you really are and stand for. We have explained that in the article Map Your Values And Attitudes For Job Search In Norway.

Questions

If there are some parts of the advertisement that are not clear for you or have missing data are excellent candidates for the questions that you will ask the contact person on your first phone call when you are finished with Job Vacancy Analysis.

Job Vacancy Analysis Matching With Competencies Cornerstones

This will help you to easily match data from Job Vacancy with data from Competencies Cornerstones Mapping that explain your professional and personal skills, motivation, contribution, and values.

Updated your Competencies Cornerstones data as you evolve professionally and personally. All these data will be very handy when you move on and write your own:

• Elevator Pitch
• Targeted Cover Letter
• Targeted Resume (CV)
• Self-Presentation

Useful Vocabulary

Here are some useful words in Norwegian used in this text.

Good To Know

With experience, you will be able to read in between the lines in the job advertisements and have a better understanding of what you are potentially applying for. If you do the right job advertisement analysis then all the other steps will be a lot easier. Other steps are Elevator Pitch, a phone call, writing a targeted Cover letter, and Resume.

Next Step

Your next step is to write the Elevator Pitch which you will use in the phone conversation when calling the contact person to get to know more about the position, make a first impression, and create a contact with the potential employer.

Good Luck with your Job Search!

Find Job In Norway By Following These Easy 19 Steps

Don’t forget that this article is part of a text serious about finding a job in Norway. Depending on the phase you are in at the moment maybe you can find some articles useful for yourself. So please check them out.

Below you can see the infographic with an overview of all the texts in the series. If you click on the link above you will be sent to the page where all these steps are listed.

Author: Dejan Mladenovic

I moved my family of 3 to Norway in 2008 and created this website so that I can share what I’ve learned with anyone that’s thinking of moving or traveling to Norway. It’s such an awesome place, and I want you to get the most out of it!