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Task 1 General · Formal letter · Work

Speculative application to a company with no advertised vacancy

A formal letter with no job advertisement to reply to, where the band 9 answer solves the real problem — giving a stranger a reason to keep reading.

The question

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. Write at least 150 words. You do NOT need to write any addresses. Begin your letter as follows: Dear Sir or Madam,

You would like to work for a company in your city, but it has not advertised any vacancies. Write a letter to the human resources manager of the company.

  • Explain why you are interested in working for this particular company
  • Describe the experience and skills you would bring
  • Say what you would like the company to do next

A 150-word letter in a formal, semi-formal or personal register. This prompt is original, written in the standard format for teaching purposes — it is not taken from any past paper.

What separates the three answers

The band 6.5 letter lists qualifications, the 7.5 letter matches them to the company, and the band 9 letter names a problem the company has and positions the writer as the answer to it.

The three answers

Band 6.5

176 words (the task asks for at least 150)

The answer works. It addresses the task, the reader follows it, and the meaning survives — but ideas stay general, linking is mechanical, wording repeats, and small errors are visible throughout.

The answer

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing this letter because I want to ask about the job opportunities in your company. I know that you are not advertising any position at the moment, but I am very interested to work with you.

I am interested in your company because it is one of the best company in the water engineering field3 in our city, and I have read many good things about your projects in the newspaper. I think it would be a great opportunity for me to develop my career there.

About my experience, I have finished my degree in civil engineering in 20194 and after that I worked for three years in a construction company as a site engineer. I have a good knowledge of AutoCAD and I have also good communication skills. I am hard working person and I can work in a team.

Please let me know if you have any vacancy in the future.1 I attach my CV with this letter. Thanks a lot for your time.2

Yours faithfully, M. Farrell

What an examiner notices

  1. 1. Task achievement

    “Please let me know if you have any vacancy in the future.”

    This asks the reader to remember the writer indefinitely. A speculative letter should propose something specific — a meeting, a call, a portfolio review — that can be said yes to.

  2. 2. Lexical resource

    “Thanks a lot for your time.”

    A conversational sign-off phrase immediately before 'Yours faithfully'. The two registers collide in consecutive lines.

  3. 3. Grammatical range and accuracy

    “it is one of the best company in the water engineering field”

    'One of the best' requires a plural noun. A small, high-frequency error of exactly the kind that recurs at this band.

  4. 4. Coherence and cohesion

    “About my experience, I have finished my degree in civil engineering in 2019”

    A label rather than a transition. It signposts the bullet the writer is now answering instead of connecting the paragraph to the one before it.

One honest caveat

Band labels here describe what each piece of writing demonstrates against the four published assessment areas, paraphrased in plain language. They are teaching illustrations produced for this site, not official material, and no sample has been marked by a test provider. Real scripts are marked whole; two answers with the same label can still look quite different from each other, and nothing on this page can promise anyone a particular result.

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