Your Job Power Report, done right and used right, keeps you from forgetting anything of importance at a job interview. It influences employers to ask questions that help you put your best foot forward. It saves you lots of time when answering advertisements. It almost eliminates the need to fill out job application forms. It enables you to practice what you want to say at job interviews, which will make you much less nervous. It helps you to get interviews without turn downs (which you'll learn to do in Four).
One of the most important things the Job Power Report does is help you overcome the attitudes of older persons who believe that young job seekers have no experience and virtually nothing to offer an employer.
If you completed the tasks given in previous s, you have already done the basic work needed to make your Job Power Report. You have studied your greatest Achievements, checked them on the skills chart, and used the Reality Test to make sure you have the skills and activities that fit into your ideal job.
When you job hunt you are constantly in a crisis situation. You are meeting new people at interviews. You are trying to enter a new part of the world—the world of work. And you are moving away from the very sheltered world of education. In the working world you will be meeting people similar to those you've met before, but their attitudes will often be very different. Their actions and manner of speech will be very different. Even if you have worked part-time while in school, and have some acquaintance with the working world, the thought of entering it on a full-time basis can be scary.
You don't want employers to treat you like a kid. But you are not sure what you should do if that happens. You're probably not clear about what job you should ask for. You don't know how interviewers want you to answer their questions, nor what questions they'll ask. You don't know how much time you'll have at interviews, nor if you'll be able to correct mistakes might you make. You probably don't know how to fill out a job application form, especially if you're asked to do it in a hurry. You don't know how to get contacts and job leads, except perhaps through public employment services, private agencies, and maybe your friends or family.
When you have your Job Power Report, all these fears and unknowns will be greatly lessened.
Here is a Job Power Report you can study. This one was used by a young woman looking for a summer job. Your report is sure to be different, but the principles that go into developing it will be the same.
JOB POWER REPORT OF Janis B. Ronay 214 North Street Atlanta, Ga. 19620 Tel: 123-4566
Skills I Can Offer: Perseverance and reliability, quick learning ability, cool in emergencies, good memory, good spelling, keep things in order, good listener and follower of instructions, leadership, competitive, persuasive, good finger-skills. These are be-ginning skills.
PROOF: Elected President of Y-Teens (YWCA) on basis of ability and example: also elected President of Glee Club;
organized their many events and activities Sold jewelry through fashion parties ... In top academic group of my class ... Selected to be in both the Atlanta Chorus and the State Chorus ... Make clothes for myself and for others who’ pay me for it.
Personal: Age 16, 5'3", 126 lbs.
Janis wrote an effective Job Power Report. Let's see why it is a good job rinding tool:
1. There is no statement about what kind of job she wants. Yet you've been told a dozen times that you must decide on what job you want. See why we say you don't need to, and make up your own mind which way makes more sense. About 2,500 of the approximately 25,000 different jobs that exist are changing every year some dying, some changing in content, some new ones being added. You cannot possibly know which ones have changed or are changing right now. That's one reason why you shouldn't use a job title, unless you are the one person in seven who really has a "fix" on his or her career. Another reason is that the same job titles often mean different duties in different organizations. A third reason is that you want to have the best opportunity to use and develop your skills, and putting a title on them is more likely to limit than to increase that opportunity. A fourth reason is that by leaving a job title off your report, you get the interviewer involved in asking just what you do want. Your Job Power Report must be a tool for getting people interested in you. The more involved they become, the more effective your tool. If you are clear about the job title you want, then you certainly should state it. Beware of indicating that you are expert (unless you really are). Even where you are expert, be sure you make it clear that you have limited experience, which is always true of young men and women.
You might want to try using two different job titles. For instance, someone who has bought junkyard cars, fixed them up and sold them, and loves to do that, might aim one Job Power Report at auto mechanics, and the other at technical sales. In the first case he might start his Report with: "Automobile Mechanic—good at fixing car engines, can hear where the trouble is and make needed adjustments or repairs so it runs well again; mostly experienced with Ford, Chevy and VW engines; trained by first class mechanics who showed me and told me things, and also by experience in salvaging junked cars, repairing them and selling five of them. At age 181 still have a lot to learn, but I learn mechanical things quickly." The technical or mechanical sales Report would be written so as to emphasize the selling skill.
If you are going to start with a job title, you need to find out its general meaning. You can do that in one of two ways: ask a librarian, or a vocational guidance counselor, to show you a book about the kind of job you want. The U.S. Department of Labor (Washington D.C. 20213) puts out little books, sometimes s in larger books, on many kinds of jobs. One way, in other words, is to read about it in order to find out which of your skills really relate to that job. Another way of getting a clear idea of what specific job titles entail is to ask two or three people doing that kind of work. If you take this second way, you will be in contact with persons who could later help you to get job leads (see 4).
2. The "Skills I Can Offer" paragraph is a simple listing of the skills and talents you have proven by following the steps given in s 1 and 2. They can be organized in one of two ways: either beginning with the top abilities you can prove, qualities you feel an employer wants (as in Janis's Job Power Report); or beginning with the skills that are central to what you want to do, as with the one that begins, "Auto Mechanic good at fixing car engines."
To see what we mean by "skills that are central", think about a truck driver, a scientific researcher, and a newspaper reporter. All of them must be observant, and this is sure to be among their top skills. But being observant is essential and central to being a truck driver; being analytical is more important to a researcher; and writing skill is more important to a newspaper reporter. You worked out your central skills when you studied the sixteen work areas in the previous and when you used the Skills Chart and the Reality Test.
Never list your skills in alphabetical order, as you might be tempted to do, because this could give the wrong impression to an employer. For instance, if you are accurate in keeping records, have a good memory, are very observant, safety conscious, and love to travel, you might be offered a warehouse record-keeping job. But if you put "very observant and safety conscious" first, the opportunity to drive a truck might be offered.
When you've written your "Skills I Can Offer" section, it might seem as though you have a very great deal to offer, and some persons will suggest that it sounds like bragging.
Do keep in mind that yours are not fully-developed skills, they are beginning skills, living and growing skills which you can prove you possess. And the proof you offer shows the level to which they have been developed. So you're not fooling anyone. You certainly should not let anyone get away with the idea that you have nothing at all to offer, just because you may not have worked for pay before. However, be sure that you can support with examples your good potential for each skill included in this paragraph.
3. The "Proof paragraph is optional, though most people do use it. If you do not use it, write something like
this in its place: "Please ask me questions about any of these skills." When you do use this paragraph, be sure you
are careful to give examples that show your highest level of effectiveness in the different skills, and indicate that there
are other examples you could give. A phrase like this could be used: "Some of the experiences that demonstrate I have
these skills include:" Then you could give a brief statement of some of those experiences.
Don't say too much in this section. The person looking at it should be able to read your complete Job Power Report in about 45 to 90 seconds less than two minutes which means less than 200 words for both paragraphs.
4. Always include your age and something descriptive .like height and weight. If your schooling facts are to your
advantage, include them. If you are in a wheelchair, blind, or otherwise what some people call "handicapped," do not
mention these in your Report. But be prepared to talk about your situation as soon as you get your interviews perhaps along these lines if you are in a wheelchair:
"Thank you for seeing me Mr. Jones. The skills shown in this Job Power Report (hand it to him) are not limited by
my being in a wheelchair. Will you please ask me some questions about them?" Or, if you are blind you might say:
"The skills I have listed are sometimes strengthened because of my blindness." Or if you are deaf, you might be able to say: "One of my special assets is that it doesn't bother me to work in noisy places because I'm deaf." More importantly, if you are "handicapped," take advantage of the excellent assistance offered through your State Rehabilitation Service. Throughout the country, nearly all of its employees do very fine work helping their clients to get jobs.
5. Your name and address should be in the upper right part of the Job Power Report. Always include a telephone number where you can be reached, or where you will get a message. A group or Job Cooperative can be useful by providing a central number through which those without telephones can be reached. In the working world, decisions about employing someone are often followed by a telephone call, so you need to let it be known that you can be reached through a certain telephone number. But if it is not your own, you should say so at the interview, perhaps along these lines: "I'm sure you can leave a message for me at the phone number listed in my Job Power Report. I'm over there just about every day, and they know where to reach me in the next block."
6. If you have work history, it is usually advisable to leave it out unless it supports what you say in the "Skills I Offer" paragraph. Most older persons include work history in what is called a resume (something like a Job Power Report), but an obituary-like chronological listing of jobs usually buries the person's skills. As you know, a lot of young men and women take on jobs to make a buck, and they go for the ones that pay the most. That doesn't mean they enjoy those jobs, or even do them well. Occasionally someone of sixteen will lie about his age and get a construction job paying about six dollars an hour which is at the rate of $11,000 a year. But what he or she could really be working at is getting the cash needed for down payment on a car.
The rule here is that you do not put into your Job Power Report anything which might mislead an employer or alert him to skills that you don't enjoy using.
For instance, if you did work on a construction job for the money, and you did not include it in your Report, here is how you could talk about it at an interview: "I'm willing to work hard for what I want, and one of my skills is driving safely. So even though I don't like construction laboring, I figured out it was the best paying job around and doing that kind of work would quickly let me save money for a down payment on a car."
When you say it that way, it affirms your practicality as well as your safe driving skill, and it takes away from the interviewer the weight he might give to your mention of working as a construction laborer. An oversimplification of the rule is, if you don't want to do it again, don't put it in your report.
Now we'll get to a list of what you'll need to prepare your Job Power Report, and then give you several Report examples.
The things you'll need from your Career Journal to prepare your Job Power Report are:
1. The list of your strongest or motivated skills
2. Your Motivated Skills Chart
3. Your Reality Test pages detailing experiences that demonstrate your effectiveness in different activities
4. A list of your education, training, work experiences and social and family activities that could give evidence of any of your skills or talents.
The following steps will help you prepare your Job Power Report:
1. Write "JOB POWER REPORT OF ..." on the left near the top of a sheet of paper about 5.5x8.5 inches. On the right put your name, address and phone number.
2. Above the middle of the page write down the skills you have proved through your Reality Test pages, and the activities with which they are related. Be sure you put first either those attitudes and activities that you feel sure will give a favorable impression, or especially strong skills that you don't ever want to be overlooked. (You will see in the examples how this is done.)
3. In a second paragraph, again using your Reality Test facts, summarize—in as few words as possible—those experiences that demonstrate the skills given in your first paragraph.
4. If these two paragraphs total more than 200 or less than 90 words, edit them (or get help in doing that) so your Job Power Report can be read by an interviewer in 45 to 90 seconds.
5. Your "Personal" section can also include your work history if there is any. Include your age, your schooling and class standing if these will be helpful (otherwise leave them out), your height and weight. When you do include a work history, keep it very brief.
The facts about yourself may require you to modify some of these steps, but for the great majority of young men and women between 16 and 21 these five steps will result in an effective Job Power Report.
If your spelling or writing abilities are not too good, develop your Report and then get someone who can spell and write to fix it up in final shape. (This is another place when members of your small group or Job Cooperative can be helpful.)
The following nine samples demonstrate different styles of Job Power Reports, and some before and after problems. The first one is that of Jeannie Gibbs.
JOB POWER REPORT OF JEANNIE GIBBS :193-17 56th Avenue Lindenhurst, N.Y. 19116 Tel: 461-1191
Artist, exhibitor, prizewinner. Careful young artist with portfolio of fashion, people, animals. More than five years of training have developed talent shown since early childhood. Top student in art class. Studied techniques of commercial artists and fashion designers. More than twenty of my pictures were used to decorate high school art rooms.
I also write well, and collaborated in writing a short story. But art is my life, and I continue to listen, observe and learn. My age is seventeen.
Would you like to see my portfolio, and ask me some questions?
Before you say, "What's so unusual about that for someone who won an art competition," take some other facts into consideration. She was a delinquent who had been "away" for six months; she was afraid to look for a job; she acted very shy and had almost no self-confidence when she joined our Job Cooperative. At the beginning she said she had no achievements she could remember; with some encouragement, from seventeen others in the Co-op, she began to write down achievements and soon was in the swing of the self-discovery activities described in s One and Two. She practiced talking about her drawings, paintings and other achievements, and her self-confidence returned.
She applied our techniques for getting interviews, and was recommended from one person to another. After being interviewed twenty times without getting turned down, she got the kind of job she wanted as Assistant to a commercial artist in two weeks. She had been without a job, feeling more and more hopeless, for over two months.
Barry's achievements are different. Look at them, think about what skills you could find in them, and what kind of job Barry would be offered before he went through the tasks described in earlier s 1 and 2.
At first, he denied that he had any skills, and it was hard to get him to stay with the Job Co-op. His greatest achievement, he said, was finding out "that he knew he could play sports half way decent (basketball, baseball, football). No. 2 Cutting grass. No. 3 Learning about myself. No. 4 Learning all about sex, girls, etc. No. 5 Driving and learning about cars. No. 6 Learning how to play the accordion. No. 7 Riding a bike. No. 8 Re-finishing furniture."
By the time he completed his Reality Test, and talked about his best talents with other members of the Co-op, Barry realized that the skills he used to play the accordion, to fix cars and his bike were all hand skills. When he was playing softly on his accordion, his light touch and movements were not very different in quality from those he used to finish furniture. He discovered that being pleased with the attention he got from being on the athletic field was similar to the feeling he got when people responded to his accordion playing. It takes good observation and a good sense of physical and spatial balance to be on three athletic teams, to drive a car safely and to ride a bike well.
These are the key paragraphs in his Job Power Report:
Skills I
Can Offer: Very observant, good sense of how things fit together and how to fix them, willing to work where I can be seen, good physical endurance and strength, patient in learning and quick in what I do, safe driver.
PROOF: Letters in basketball, baseball, and football; good driver, no accidents in two years; bought my caV with money earned fixing cars for friends, neighbors and others, by contracting to cut grass, and sometimes playing accordion in a band.
Personal: Age 18, high school graduate.
Barry was pleased with his Job Power Report. But he was skeptical that it could be helpful. So on his way home when he stopped off for gas, he called to the station manager and said, "Hey, will you take a minute to look at this and tell me if you think it could help me get a job? I'm not asking you for one, and I don't expect you to know of one."
The station manager came over, quickly read it, asked Barry a couple of questions and said, "We're shorthanded here evenings and weekends. If you'd like to try it out I'd like to have someone like you working for me."
Barry turned his car around and came right back to the Qiurch where his Job Co-op was and told the priest his experience. He'd told the manager he'd think about it and let him know in a couple of days. But Barry had found out that the system in this book could work for him, so he made it work some more and got the different job that he wanted.
Here's another one:
JOB POWER REPORT OF MERRY LOVE :143 Omega Street S.E. Lincoln, Neb. 41565 TEL: 123-4567
Skills I
Can Offer: Patient, helpful with people problems, calm in emergencies, careful and precise handskills, good intelligence.
PROOF: Biology dissections and related tests - top grade in class; invited back two summers to work again with
disabled children; always being asked to help friends with their school work and personal problems; babysitting work pays for my clothes; I play the guitar and piano; when my parents get emotionally upset I am able to calm them down. Candystriper.
Personal: Age 18. High school graduate, Jan., 1976
Merry's information was developed from beginning with these top achievements:
1. Calming down my parents when they're emotionally upset,
2. Working with disabled children,
3. Helping my friends with their problems and their school work,
4. Learning to play guitar and piano,
5. Paying for my clothes with babysitting money,
6. Planting flowers and helping them grow,
7. Helping my parents around the house.
You remember Hank Wilson. His greatest achievements were listed in 2 in relation to skill clusters and the Reality Test. He's the one who left home when he was fifteen, repaired motorbikes, went back home, graduated from high school and left college after one term. One reason he wanted a Job Power Report was that once he wrote one he felt he could change it from time to time as he gained experience and education in the Air Force. Six months before his term was up, he decided he could begin to make job contacts in the civilian working world. Here is his Job Power Report at age 18.
JOB POWER REPORT OF HENRY (HANK) J. WILSON: 119 Fort McHenry Drive Jamestown, Va. 22613 Tel: 119-3168
Skills I
Possess: Communicate well, several hand skills (cars, bricklaying, carpentry, cement/ plastering, farm machinery, etc.), good with people of all ages, leadership, start and finish things on my own as well as with a team, very observant, good memory, like being outdoors and traveling. Very persuasive.
Evidence: Elected president of two student bodies; repaired and refinished houses, added rooms, sold my services; fixed, sold and made a profit on two old cars; employed as motorcycle mechanic; managed a small firm with two helpers: purchased supplies and equipment, buildings, kept all records, sold produce and milk, made a small profit. I know that's a lot to believe about a young man of 18, but you can ask me questions about it.
Personal: 6'2", excellent health, some college.
"There's no room for this kind of information on a job application form", Hank said. "It all sounds impressive, and yet it's true. I'd like to try it out now, just to see how people react to it."
Our counselor said, "It might even have some influence on your Air Force job. Maybe you should check it with your commanding officer and ask him if he thinks it's the kind of thing that would help you get a job outside."
Well, that's what he did. And the result was that after interviews with several officers, he was sent back to college at government expense and agreed to continue in the Air Force for a couple of years after that, meanwhile keeping up with his military training.
In one of Bernard Haldane's Career Planning courses at Fairleigh Dickinson University, one freshman student had been counseled through the Admissions Office to take engineering courses because his math was so good. His Greatest Achievements list showed he had organized three dance bands, managed them and kept them busy with bookings through two summers and Saturday nights most of two school years. He made enough money then to pay his own way for three years of college. He was a trumpet player himself. He had so much fun with those activities that he didn't relate them to a career possibility. He knew he worked hard to get those bookings, but he had enjoyed that, too. Just before he wrote his Job Power Report, he arranged to switch to business management and marketing or selling courses.
A well-meaning relative had told him that when he went to college he would have to stop playing around. So he was prepared to drop the activities that the Career Planning course made clear were the essence of his life. Here is the first paragraph of his Report. He was not yet eighteen.
Skills I
Can Prove: Business management, sales and organizing skills, associated with dance bands and entertainment. Know how and where to recruit musicians and entertainers, negotiate payment for services, keep them working together as teams. Sell services for all kinds of occasions, keep business records, and make a profit.
Here's an example of another kind of Job Power Report. Hazel Brown was an orderly's assistant in a hospital. She also helped out at a kindergarten and in the high school office, and helped hospital nurses with their chores. Some of her attitudes at school were helpful in developing her Report:
JOB POWER REPORT OF HAZEL BROWN: 114 23 Street St. Jones, N.Y. 10016 Tel: H05-2562
My Skills
Include: On-time worker who is careful and neat, very good handwriting, good in typing, filing, bookkeeping and spelling; particularly good with children and in a health-care environment. Listen to and follow instructions well.
Proof: No absences or lateness during three years of high school; commended for volunteer office work in high school; sew my own clothes; invited to re-turn after summer job at Bellevue Hospital. Good grades in all commercial subjects.
Personal: Passed Regents exams, age 17 1/2.
Another young woman of seventeen, Betty Catin is not clear about the environment in which she wants to work. While the contents of Hazel's Report would help Hazel get contacts in the health-care field, Betty's Report is not focused that way. Just the same, she does make it clear what some of her best skills are:
JOB POWER REPORT OF ELIZABETH CATIN : 142 East 42 Street New York, N.Y. 10004 Tel: JE 4- 1415
Skills I
Can Offer: Shorthand (90 wpm) and typing (65 wpm), pleasant telephone voice, good in relationships with people, good speller, a caring and responsible person, memory.
Proof: Earned Good Citizenship Award for ability to get along well with teachers and students; Leader of Girl Scouts, and elected president of camp; volunteer typist of forms for people with housing problems; high grades in typing, stenography, spelling, English.
Personal: Age 17, very good health.
You will notice that she did not include her height and weight (4'11", 118 lbs.). This is because some persons don't like short and chubby young women (or similar young men, for that matter), and you don't have to say anything against yourself in a Job Power Report. In any case, you will be hired because of your strengths, not because of what others may think is wrong with you. The Report should avoid stirring up unconscious prejudices that exist in each of us, while making your values, skills and talents very clear. It is quite different from Hank Wilson, 6'2". Height is helpful to a person with selling skill.
Now let's look at the Job Power Report of a person with no experience, someone who told his mother he'd like to be able to make some money during the summer, but didn't know what to ask for or where to go. His mother was a Haldane-trained job counselor, so she asked him to talk about things he felt he did well and enjoyed doing. He complained he felt like he was bragging, but the facts slowly came out. Then she helped him put them together, because he was only fourteen. And here's what his Report looked like:
JOB POWER REPORT OF DAVID JAMES : 2315 Winn Gills Drive Cleveland, Ind. 41631 Tel: 266-5967
What I have to offer: You can tell what my skills are from these experiences. They have required responsibility, getting along with people, doing what is expected of me - and more, some problem solving, some leadership, intelligence.
I've been an honor roll student for 2 years. As Scout troop quartermaster I take care of all equipment and supplies; I am a Star Scout, and have been Patrol Leader, Senior Patrol Leader and Scribe. I am on the Human Relations Committee which tries to solve school problems. I volunteered for a daily summer re-creational program for 80 grade school children, leading them in games, operating audiovisual equipment, etc. I was elected to the Student Council last year. My daily newspaper route covered three square miles (6 months of it). And my hobbies include reading, coin and stamp collecting, camping and canoeing, other outdoor activities.
I would like you to recommend me for a summer job to someone who could use several of my talents.
David thought it was too much to have all those little truths together. But the candy store owner he first showed it to said, "I didn't know all these things about you. You should show it to Mr. Sonninwell in the drug store. Lots of people go to him when they're looking to find someone to help out during the summer. Tell him I sent you."
David had met Mr. Sonninwell before, but using the candy store owner's name helped. However, the drug store man used the same words: "I didn't know these things about you, David. I'll keep you in mind if I hear of anything. But I think you should see Mr. Green over at the bank. I'll telephone and ask him to see you if you'll wait a moment." The banker said, after reading the Report, "You certainly should have a job this summer, and I'm going to call some of my friends about you. I'd like to make some copies of your Report to give to them."
David went home after that, with a very different sense of himself. He found that he was wanted for himself and his potential usefulness, and that his fear of talking to employers was largely gone. In his own way he used the procedures described in this book, going first to the candy store owner, giving him the Report and saying "Will you please read this and ask me some questions?" Those persons, and others he met in the same way, enabled him to find a summer job long before the end of June.
Janet Talley, a new college graduate of 20, was using an old-style resume. She had been looking for a special kind of work for six months, without success. Her resume gives a job objective in line with her college major of Economics, where she was in the top quarter of her class. Here's what her resume looked like after her name, address and telephone:
JOB WANTED
A tax or budget analysis, or a research job.
EDUCATION
B.A. Economics/Political Science, Jan.,1976, University of Kentucky. Courses included statistics, public finance, accounting, monetary policy, debate, bureaucracy, organization behavior, group decision making, legislative and executive branches.
Grade point average 3.45
EXTRACURRICULAR
National Women's honor society; president of campus Democratic Club; Girl Scout leader; on dorm housing council. National Organization of Women, member.
EMPLOYMENT EXPERIENCE
University Housekeeping staff, two college years. Hospital patients' secretary p/t, one year. Receptionist at private clinic, p/t, one year.
HOBBIES
Mountain climbing, canoeing, travel, conversation, consumer lobbying, investigating sex discrimination, debating.
PERSONAL
Age 20, single.
Sure it looks good. But do you know what her skills are, or must you guess at them? And can you see that the job she asks for (tax or budget analysis, and research) requires her to be sitting at a desk working with figures and books all day, when her hobbies show she might prefer to be outdoors, traveling and talking. If there is no relation-ship between her employment experience (housekeeping, secretary, receptionist) and the kind of job she wants, perhaps she shouldn't mention it unless she wants to be offered secretarial work, an unappealing prospect for a N.O.W. debater.
Janet's resume shows that the traditional way to go after a job can conceal your skills, making employers guess at them and therefore hesitate to consider you or offer you employment.
Job Application Form
The usual job application form is little different from the traditional resume. After asking for many personal facts which could be of no use unless you are employed (nine out often applicants are NOT employed), the usual form asks for your dates of work, a description of your job, name and address of employer, name of your supervisor, your rate of pay. What follows is this part of a modern job application form.
Your rates of pay would be totally misleading if you hated the job or didn't do well in it, or if you took it just to make a few dollars for a while. Application forms also ask for permission to check up on your work with your former supervisors. But if you didn't get along with each other, which happens more often than is talked about, even if your work was good just contacting that person could lead to some doubt about you and therefore the loss of an opportunity both for you and for the organization. These negative situations don't happen all the time, but the traditional system and its forms enable it to happen much too often.
You should have ready, in your pocket or pocketbook, certain information you will need to put on application forms. Write the items carefully on a 3x5" card or in a notebook and carry it around with you wherever you go; it will save you lots of time and effort at remembering. This information is your Social Security number, your date and town of birth, where you now live and other places you have lived, full name of your father and your mother's maiden name, the schools you have attended with dates, best subjects and grades. Also have the names of three people who could speak favorably of you as a person, but check with them first to make sure of what they might say and their willingness to have their names used.
Most of the time, if you use your Job Power Report as we suggest in this book, you will not have to complete those forms unless a job opening is available. However, you will always have to fill out a standard job application form before you are employed, unless you go to work for an organization with less than a dozen employees; even then some kind of job application is likely to be used. When you have the card in your pocket, you can pull it out and copy the dates and facts onto the form.
You will not necessarily have all the names, dates and places of employment on your Job Power Report, and certainly not the names and telephone numbers of persons who supervised you, so it is a good idea to have those names and telephone numbers on a small card in your pocket.
There are two times when completing job application forms could expedite your employment. The first is with government jobs. Most local, State and Federal agencies have a central bureau that distributes applications to all government agencies of the same type. If you complete and turn in your application it might reach a larger number of potential government employers than you can alone. The fastest-growing area of job opportunities is in state and local government agencies, and this growth is expected to continue for many years.
The second place that can distribute application forms to many potential employers is the large company personnel or employment office. For both places you will need to turn in one form and have another completed one to bring to interviews, so don't give up your own copy, except when an employer will immediately reproduce (Xerox) a copy for himself and return yours to you. In any case, you can't expect that circulating your application form is sure to get you a job offer. Until you have your job, you should keep on getting interviews by using the techniques given in Four.
How To Use Your Report
Your Job Power Report will help you in several ways. It will help you to have interviews without turndowns—which is the subject of the next . It will help you avoid worry about forgetting important things to say at interviews. It will enable you to avoid filling out job application forms most of the time. It will help you know what to talk about at interviews. You can and should use it to influence an interviewer to ask the questions that help you put your best foot forward. It will reduce your fears and help you maintain self-confidence at interviews. It helps you practice what to say at job interviews. It also enables you to "be present" in several places at the same time, at least on paper, and makes it easy for you to reply to newspaper advertisements.
You will need about a hundred copies of your Report. Have someone type one (or two) copies for you. If you only have one, it can be photocopied or xeroxed almost perfectly. Then paste the two copies on a full-size sheet of paper 81/2 x 11" and have an Instant Print or Quick Print firm make 50 copies, which you then cut in half so you have a hundred. You will find these printers in almost every city through the Yellow Pages of the telephone directory under the heading Duplicating Services. The cost for the printing should be less than $3.00. These small companies, your post office, or your library, can also make single copies of your Job Power Report at a cost of between 10c and 25c each.
Get practice in using your Job Power Report. Ask relatives, friends, classmates, neighbors to question you about what you say in it. Ask them to act like an employer or interviewer, while you act yourself looking for a job. If you are a Job Cooperative member, your practice opportunities are built into its operations. You'll find a section on practicing in 4, as well as a listing of questions employers could ask.
Here's one thing to practice with your Job Power Report: practice how you would act and what you would say when you go into an organization's employment office for a job. The first thing that happens, usually, is that you are given a job application form. You will need to feel comfortable about taking it, writing in your name, address, telephone and Social Security numbers, then attaching your Job Power Report to it, and returning it to the person at the desk. At that time, you would say something like this: "I'd really like an interview if you have a job opening up that would use the skills shown on this Report; Fill be glad to take the time to complete the rest of it if there are any openings. Will you please show this to the interviewer and let me know if he (she) will see me?"
The way your Report helps you to be several places at once is through the mail. You might see in the evening newspaper an ad for a job you would like to have, but you can't go after it because early the next morning you have another job interview. Well, you can put your Report in an envelope, address it to the place given in the ad, mail it at your late-pickup post office (there is at least one in every town), and it probably will be in the following morning's mail at the time you are having your interview elsewhere. You could use a pointed colored marker to write something like this on any Report you mail: "I can do that job you advertised. Please call me." And then sign your name.
Another way it helps your skills to be seen several places at once is through contacts who ask you for copies to show to other people they know ( 4 tells you how to create contacts if you have none). And if you are in a Job Cooperative, your other group members will be using it to let their contacts know about your skills.
You should start using your Report this way. Make a list of four or five persons you respect, but who you believe would NOT have jobs for you yes, would NOT have jobs for you, or even know of any. That's to make sure you will not be disappointed when they say they don't know of one. It will also help you to be comfortable when you say something like this, as you meet the first one: "I'd like to know if you think this Job Power Report will help me to get a job, or how I could improve it. I don't expect you to know of a job for me, but I'm looking." Then give your Report to the person and ask him to read it before asking you questions.
If you have done a thorough job of preparing your Report, the chances are he will not know all the facts you have put into it. So he's likely to be a little surprised, say so, and start asking you questions. This makes sure that he gets to know you better, and also remembers more clearly what you are looking for. Don't be surprised if he suggests you should put in things he knows about you, but which you carefully left out; but don't argue about why it should be in or out. ("Maybe I should put that in," is a safe comment to make.) Of course it is possible that he is right, although the chances are against that since you carefully selected again and again what you wanted to put in.
Then, when you've had your talk, if he doesn't ask for a couple of copies of your report, or doesn't give you an-other contact or two, ask him if he'd like one or two copies of your Report to show to people he knows who might have a job which would use your skills. Then, you take the same line with the others—who could include someone in a supermarket, a drugstore, a church, a community center, a service club, a scouting or similar organization, a police department, a social service worker. And if you see five per-sons, the chances are you will have four or five people using your Job Power Report to help you get a job. And the chances also are that they will give you contacts to several others who will bring closer the kind of job you want.
That Job Power Report, carefully prepared, is a powerful tool to help you get the kind of job you want much faster. Twice in 1975 and 1965, a report of the United States Department of Labor said that the approaches given in this book help more than twice as many young people get jobs in half the time compared with others who did not use these systems.
Summary
The Job Power Report samples given in this show what information is left out, what is put in, and some ways they are used. These samples also indicate some practical solutions to the difficulties a young adult faces when looking for a job. Because of the common attitude among adults that young people have no experience and little to offer an employer, the Job Power Report helps the young job seeker to get these older persons to ask questions that prove their potential usefulness. It not only increases your employability but also the possibility that jobs will be created for you where none were thought to exist.
This also reveals how to use the Report to answer newspaper ads, and how to initiate contacts with people who can help you find the job you are looking for.
