Just like any other form of human interaction, applying for a job is all about getting your message across. Using Roman Jakobson's classical communication model, you can see yourself as a sender who will have to use a wide range of channels (writing a letter, calling potential employers on the phone, talking to them face-to-face, etc.) to get a message across to a sender (i.e. recruiter). Ideally, the recruiter will offer positive feedback to your original message and you will get an invitation to an interview.
Alternatively, you could consider the recruiter a sender, whose message is a job advertisement. If you are able to decode the original message correctly, you'll offer the appropriate feedback, the interaction will run smoothly.
Jakobson's model is able to show roughly how communication works, but it fails to indicate the complexities of human conversation. Day to day interactions for example are a lot more chaotic than this model implies. The same thing goes for the recruitment process: it is a dynamic sequence in which a great deal of language skills are required. In your letter, you need to pick up the signals the recruiter has left in the vacancy and during a successful interview you will constantly fine-tune your message so as to offer the most appropriate feedback to your interlocutor.
When things go wrong during an interaction and one side misunderstands the other or external factors interfere, this is called noise. If you come to an interview looking shabbily, this is an external cause of noise you cloud have avoided. If your letter gets smudged in the post office, this creates a bad impression which you are powerless to avoid.
Since each code has its own peculiarities, the ways of avoiding noise differ. In the section concerning the cover letter you will learn how to write efficiently. Avoiding communicative noise is considered with reference to the job interview.
Avoiding noise and corresponding smoothly and clearly, are two important skills in the recruitment process. Before you reply to a message however, you have to understand what the other person actually means. You have to be able to see through job ads.
