1. Consider your career in terms of a series of progressively more important demonstrations of what you have accomplished for the organizations that hired you in the past
Some specific instances of your value to your company may be minor, others major, in terms of the new job that you seek. Organize your contributions in such a way as to show this growth quickly. Help your prospective boss to know that you can be counted on for personal growth. Make him believe you are a person on the way up, one with potential for growth in the next job.
At this point many of you may be experiencing doubts. I have stated that the first and most basic principle of self-selling is that you sell your experience or your self-worth. I then asked you to sell these demonstrations of your value in a progressively more important manner, whether in a resume, an interview, or letter. Now you may well be wondering what so many others have wondered: Is it boastful to talk about those instances in which you did something worthwhile for your company? I confess that when I first considered the concept of offering illustrations of positive results I helped to achieve for the companies I worked for, I was afraid it might appear I was bragging. I knew very well that I wasn't the only one responsible for the successes of some of the business ventures in which I had participated. And I felt awkward saying, "I saved the company thousands of dollars," or, "I introduced a new product line that increased company sales by two million dollars." If you have pangs of conscience (and it wouldn't be surprising), let's move on to the second basic principle of self-selling.
2. Selling your prospective boss specific examples that prove your worth on the job is not bragging if you present each problem you faced and your solution to the problem in a factual, honest, and straightforward fashion
Here are some specific examples that demonstrate what businessmen and women achieved in their respective jobs. See if they sound to you as if the authors are bragging.
For four years sales had declined on product "X". To counter this I developed, then recommended to management a new package concept for this product. Management accepted the recommendation, and the purchasing department secured the package for us. Nine months after the new package was introduced, product "X" sales were 8 percent ahead of the previous year, with no increase in advertising or sales promotion expenditures.
The cash balance at our company was extremely low, and our management contemplated a major bank loan. After analyzing accounts receivable, I recommended a cash discount for prompt payment that I thought would alleviate the problem. Management bought the idea. The new discount improved our cash position to the point where a bank loan became unnecessary.
We had a label-sticking problem in our plant so I recommended utilization of a new glue formula. This suggestion increased labeling speed by 20 percent and reduced machine overhead by an equivalent amount.
Wouldn't you think seriously about hiring the people who demonstrated their worth with the specific illustrations that appear above? Do you think they were bragging? The first person told us there was a packaging problem with his company's products and that he recommended a change. Obviously, his boss, and perhaps his boss's boss, had to buy his recommendation. The change wasn't his alone, and he never claimed it as such. Yet he was instrumental in the change, and his contribution obvious. The second example came from a financial person and the third from a production engineer. None of the statements sounds boastful since they are businesslike solutions recommended by the people involved.
Concrete illustrations of what you have done in each of your jobs to overcome problems and obstacles are basic to the success of your job search. You can use them to your advantage throughout your campaign-in your resume, letters, interviews. Rather than bore you by repeating such statements as "a specific example of your contribution to a problem your company faced" over and over, I'll refer to this idea as a "worthpoint." It's a word one of the people in my class coined half-dozen years ago. It stuck throughout each session and I've been using it ever since. Some people refer to these examples as "accomplishments" in their letters and resumes. Don't! This word is a turn-off today, a self-serving phrase that seems to suggest you are about to start lauding your own efforts. Think rather of "worthpoints" as your private word that describes the factual examples of what you did on the job that led to productive results. Let the person to whom you relate your worthpoints realize for himself that each was a significant accomplishment. Don't cram accomplishments down his throat.
Even if you accept that a well-spoken or well-written worthpoint is not bragging, you may have one further doubt. It might express itself like this: "My job is the kind of job where I haven't made any contributions, and I can't make any contributions." You will never convince me of that. Let me tell you a true story that explains why. A man who worked for one of the world's largest advertising agencies came to see me one day. He had spent fifteen years in the media department, and in a management shuffle he was fired. We went over the idea of describing his value to the agency by the use of worthpoints, and he said the same thing you may be thinking: "I have none that I could use." I wasn't convinced, so we sat there for two hours, with me firing questions at him to try and stimulate his thinking. "Absolutely no worthpoints," he maintained the entire time. "None."
And at the end of two hours, just as my patience was beginning to wear thin, I noticed that he was wearing a Little League tie clip. I asked him about it. He told me he had started a Little League in his home town in New Jersey. He started with only two teams. Now there were ten. He persuaded someone to donate a ball field and someone else to donate the lights. He organized a parents' committee. He had done this all himself. After talking about the Little League, I pointed out to him that he had revealed a number of worthpoints as he talked about each of the obstacles he had faced and overcome for the pint-sized Babe Ruths. Talking about them in a matter-of-fact way wasn't bragging. And then the floodgates broke loose. Not all his business worthpoints were great. But they were clear, concrete examples that revealed his true value to his present employer and to his future ones as well! Once I got him over the initial hurdle of talking about them, he was psychologically ready to talk about them in interviews. And in no time at all he found a better job at another advertising agency.
There you have it.
The two basic principles of self-selling:
- Sell your contributions in such a way as to show personal growth.
- Tell the incidents that demonstrate your worth in a factual, anecdotal form and they won't sound like bragging.
One word of caution when you write up your worthpoints: make sure they sound believable. Don't claim to have done the impossible single-handed. It's easy to make yourself stand out, even as part of a group responsible for a project's success. To do so, just follow these two suggestions:
- Put your worthpoint in its proper perspective. Here's an example:
- Give credit to others, where appropriate:
