The Analysis

For 12 years Walter Potter had served as an executive assistant to the top policy-making officials of Ms company, the oldest of whom still had ten years to go before retirement. He had had one promotion, from administrative assistant to the national sales manager to national assistant sales manager, an ego-soothing way of saying he still functioned in the same job. His previous 12 years, in which he had risen to Assistant Secretary and Treasurer of one of the many branch offices of a large bank, had been, outside of his salary, largely non-productive because, although he didn't know it then, his Dynamic Success Factors all indicated he belonged in some phase of selling. His lack of a college degree-only two years at NYU and some night courses in banking-had further undermined his confidence. All of his associates, though lacking his ability on which they relied, had college degrees. Only two jobs in 24 years, both of which had led him into dead ends. No wonder he felt discouraged.

Potter was looking only at the stone wall in front of him, not at what his achievements had done for his associates, for the bank, and for the corporation. Once he was able to see the achievements instead of the stone wall, and analyze them in terms of salesmanship where he could function best, the rest was inevitable.

In seven lines, or 30 seconds of reading time, he made clear what he wanted and why he could function profit-ably in that capacity for a company. Then he drove home such functions as Management, Marketing, and Administration in eye-catching, first-impression words, and documented them with the facts on "AREAS OF EXPERIENCE-SOME ACCOMPLISHMENTS."



He mailed out 30 resumes, and got the response he wanted on his home telephone the next evening. "And to think," he exclaimed to me in describing his new job, "that I had to wait nearly a quarter of a century to realize what it means to enjoy your work!"

The Functional Resume of Forrest Walters required more planning. He was "more than 50 years old," which he seemed to think was as old as creation. He had not completed his high school education, and though he was well read and had taken several correspondence courses, he felt inferior to college graduates, including his own children, who, incidentally, were more in awe of their father's wisdom than that of any professor they had ever met.

In Walter's appraisal of himself, he was just a "work horse who does what is expected of him." And he was, after more than 30 years with the same company, tired of being a horse. (In his resume^ you will note, we ignored his-first years of working his way up to management level, and stated honestly, "More than fifteen years of progressively responsible management and leadership jobs." It was this we had to sell, and not the years it took him to get there, a fact all oldsters who think they have nothing left to sell should put foremost in their minds. This is the same policy in selling yourself to your new employer that the salesman uses in introducing the new model car; it may be only a slightly revised version of last year's model, but by the time he gets through stressing the new features, you are left with the impression that not an old feature remains.

Once Walters had analyzed his achievements, he no longer saw himself as a man whose 30-year career was on the down-grade to retirement. Maybe his present company thought of him as "the old reliable workhorse," but he could see his Dynamic Success Factors opening up a whole new future. He was "thinking rich" again, and feeling all the younger for it. On the strength of this new surge of confidence, he sat down to dream up "the ideal job" that would use his success factors to best advantage.

Note that he did not think of a specific job, and then try to fit his success factors to it; he let his success factors create a "dream job," and then set out to find if such a job actually existed or could be conjured up. "As long as I'm not going to get the job anyway," he said to me, "I might as well not get the best."

Well, he was thinking of the best, even if in negative terms. And he was thinking creatively. One of the most overlooked points in resume writing is that in today's rapidly changing world, opportunities are opening so fast that not even the employers are always aware of their imminence. Then along comes the right resume, and the employer finds himself saying with astonishment and relief, "Boy, that's the kind of a man we've been needing for a long time."

That is exactly what happened in Walters' case. A harassed executive vice president, too busy to realize he was working himself to death, saw in Walters' resume the solution of all his problems. Some of his problems, as Walters told me later, the executive didn't know he had.

"The whole thing was mixed up," Walters said. "The company had picked up six new lines in the last two years, including prefabricated houses and aluminum boats. The whole plant had been modernized by an engineering consultant firm, but no one had overhauled management. One senior V.P. was still in charge of storm windows, sashes and doors and could play golf every day. A junior V.P. was in charge of what they called the 'toy department,' turning out about a million dollars' worth of boats a year, and knocking himself cold. The hardest troubleshooting job I had was convincing old-time management that boats weren't toys anymore, and that the management load had to be more evenly distributed. The senior V.P. doesn't like me for busting up his golf game, but as long as my boss and the junior V.P. are getting in a little time for fishing these days, I don't have to worry."

And Walters, having the time of his life, was getting in a little fishing, too, and one of the items he fished up was a doubling of his previous salary.