Here is a step-by-step method for identifying your most important skills and experiences. Armed with this information, you'll be able to confidently answer ads and write to job-search contacts, executive search firms and companies you've targeted for a direct-mail campaign because you'll know which of your assets will be most valuable to each of your readers
Accomplishments
The best vehicle to use when determining your most marketable and enjoyable skills is an accomplishments history, which includes significant achievements from your paid career, volunteer work, hobbies, classes, organizations and other life experiences. When you are deciding what to include in your accomplishments history, keep in mind that "significant" is a loaded word, subject to a variety of interpretations.
Since we're talking about your history, you get to use your definition. If teaching your child how to hit a baseball is important to you, include it. If one of your most satisfying projects was planning a surprise party for a friend, use that too. Don't restrict yourself only to those experiences that have a direct connection with work.
The following examples of accomplishments could logically appear in someone's history. They represent both paid and nonpaid experiences, written in abbreviated or outline formats.
Sale to Criterion Corporation
Two years ago, I sold an order of 500 PCs and servers to Criterion, a company with offices throughout the United States and Mexico. I had pursued this account for a number of years and had placed orders here and there, but nothing major. Even though Criterion hadn't been a big moneymaker for me, I continued to make calls because of its great potential.
One day I received a call telling me that Jim Hancock, the company's MIS director, wanted to see me before the end of the week. Since I wasn't working on anything with them at the time, I wondered what was going on and hoped this would be my big break. Sure enough, Jim said his company had a mishmash of computers that couldn't talk to one another, and that upper management had finally agreed to replace the bits and pieces with compatible hardware and software. He asked me for a proposal for the 500 PCs and servers and the installation to connect them.
Naturally, I had to do a lot of research before I could whip together a proposal this large. I had to spend time with Jim to find out how many offices Criterion had, where they were located, how the computers would be allocated, how their planned installation schedule looked, what the company wanted these computers to do, what types of software they would be running, and a zillion other things. After three months of hard work with my manager and my company's technical people, I put together and delivered a proposal.
A week later, Jim called to say he was impressed and eager for me to present my ideas at a meeting with the top brass. Now that I knew I had a real Accomplishments History chance of getting this contract, I started to get a little nervous. This was the biggest deal I had ever pursued.
Spurred by the extra energy caused by my adrenalin, I decided to try something really innovative to capture the Executive Committee's attention. I asked our company's interior designer to use extra furniture and fixtures stored in one of our warehouses to create a prototype of a typical small field office. Then I worked with the technical people to plan and install a computer system for the model.
When the big day came, we hosted Criterion's executives at our regional office. In the morning, I gave the usual dog-and-pony presentation of our proposal. Then, after a great lunch, we opened the doors to the room where we had set up the field office and invited them to try our LAN on for size. The role-play exercise worked perfectly. I got the order, coordinated the installation, and collected a big commission check as well as lots of kudos from my management and client.
Robert Half's Resumania
When writing cover letters, too many job seekers rely on metaphors to describe their objectives and accomplishments, but they don't work and shouldn't be used. Employers are looking for facts, not rhetoric.
Some metaphors simply don't make sense, especially when you consider the jobs the candidates seek. For instance: "I am looking for a company that is looking for a man who plants corn instead of weeds and reaps corn instead of weeds because his experience in management has taught him the difference,"
Corn and weeds? Grass and weeds might have made more sense. The metaphor is more apt for someone seeking a job as a farmhand, not an accountant looking for work with a public accounting firm.
Here's another: "Although I am not a horse, I have an excellent track record."
Taking a Skills Inventory
Once you gather a variety of experiences, break them down into marketable and enjoyable skills. The following skills exercise will make this process easier for you. Notice how many skills each of the preceding achievements used, regardless of whether they were paid or unpaid.
If you are a first-time job seeker or a homemaker returning to the paid workforce, most of your significant accomplishments will probably come from volunteer work, hobbies or organizations. Don't discount their validity simply because you weren't paid a salary. They're as marketable as paid work, if you give yourself credit for them.
Functional and Transferable Skills Inventory
DIRECTIONS:
On this skills exercise, put the title of your first experience at the top of Column 1. Then, keeping in mind its step-by-step process, look at each box of transferable skills. If you used one or more of the skills in a box, put a check in Column 1. If you enjoyed using the skill(s), make a second check (in the same box).
Your completed exercise will give an excellent picture of your transferable skills, where they cluster, and which ones are most satisfying.
References
Now that you're fully prepared to highlight your key skills and experiences in cover letters and resumes, you'll need to gather names of other people who can back up your claims. It's likely you'll want to put managers and colleagues at the top of your reference list, because they're in the best position to evaluate your paid work.
Unfortunately, company policy may prohibit them from discussing your performance, because employees who receive poor references may sue. Even if you made a tremendous contribution and received consistently excellent reviews, access to your colleagues may be restricted. Why would you want to sue anyone over a positive reference? You wouldn't, but many companies feel safer blocking employees and managers from discussing any former employee's performance, good or bad. While there's no doubt this policy frustrates many to protect few, you aren't in a position to change it.
However, other sources besides your former employer can vouch for your excellent work. If you're in sales, clients make terrific references. Purchasing managers or buyers can rely on suppliers to corroborate their experiences. If you've had regular professional contact with anyone outside your company, don't hesitate to ask him to serve as a reference for you. If someone thinks you did a good job, he'll usually be honored and happy to sing your praises.
If your position is strictly an inside job, ask for a reference from a former colleague, manager of another department or an executive in a field or corporate office that's removed from your day-to-day operations. Fellow task-force members also are in an excellent position to discuss your initiative, follow-through, team skills, and creativity and so on. Because they don't work with you directly, they may be less restricted in communicating with a potential employer than your manager. Supervisors or peers who worked closely with you and have since left the company also can be great references, and they're under no obligation to toe the "no comment" company line.
Robert Half's Resumania
Here's an interesting character reference: "Joseph is the type of person that every father hopes his daughter will marry."
So how come his daughter didn't marry Joseph?
If you're employed and looking for another position on the QT, you probably won't want to give your current manager's name as a reference. Most potential employers understand this and accept names of others who can vouch for your performance and integrity. Some of the venues that produce favorable references include volunteer work, hobby groups, university classes, neighborhood groups, political campaigns, extracurricular activities, sports teams, church congregations, alumni and professional organizations, and private clubs. References from leaders in these groups can be useful, especially if you've made an important contribution. Officers, board and committee chairs and members are more memorable and praiseworthy than someone who only attends general membership meetings. When it comes to references, the old adage that "You get out what you put in" is only too true.
While you won't be listing references in your cover letter or resume, it's wise to have them primed and ready for when you become a top candidate for a position. Before starting your job search, decide whom you want to vouch for you. Then call to see if the people you have chosen are willing to discuss your qualifications with potential employers. This approach is courteous and smart because it alerts references to the important role you want them to play in your job search, and it provides you with the opportunity to verify their names, titles, addresses and phone numbers.
Another important bit of protocol involves contacting references to forewarn and prepare them for possible inquiries from ABC Company regarding your performance. Just as savvy job seekers tailor cover letters, they customize references' comments for two reasons:
References appreciate being briefed on the opening so they know what experience, skills and personality traits are required.
References will then highlight the job seeker's strongest skills to each employer.
In other words, it helps both you and your references to brief them on what to expect when they get "the call." They want to present you in the best possible light. Help them do it.
The Catastrophic Expectation
Most people can think of at least one person with whom they have a major personality conflict. Unfortunately, that individual is often their boss, college department head, biggest client or volunteer coordinator-in other words, the person they most need to ask for a reference.
The Art of Lying; Recommendations for Lousy Job Candidates
In a recent article, The Wall Street Journal included excerpts from the book, The Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations (LIAR) by Lehigh University economist Robert Thornton. When writing a recommendation for a candidate with interpersonal problems, he suggests saying: "I am pleased to say this person is a former colleague of mine." For the lazy worker: "In my opinion, you will be very fortunate to get this person to work for you."
The book, published by Meadowbrook Press in Deep Haven, Minnesota, also suggests writing the following recommendations for a criminal: "He is a man of many convictions" and "I'm sorry we let her get away." For the untrustworthy candidate: "Her true ability is deceiving." And for the inept worker: "I most enthusiastically recommend this person with no qualifications whatsoever."
Many job hunters suspect these references are eager to sabotage their job search because their relationship has been so miserable. This dilemma causes many candidates to worry incessantly about their characters being assassinated.
If this scenario sounds familiar, don't be embarrassed. You'd be surprised at the number of otherwise rational people who whip themselves into an emotional frenzy obsessing about potential catastrophes when a little reality testing would put their fears to rest.
If you're concerned that someone will blackball you, ask a friend or executive recruiter to call that person for a reference. In almost every instance, he'll either lavish you with praise or pass the call along to personnel. It's rare for even a really nasty colleague to give negative feedback on someone who's left an organization. Now that you aren't bugging him anymore, he can afford at least to be charitable, if not downright complimentary. Few people are comfortable destroying a person's reputation, especially if there isn't some reward for them in doing it.
Should your friend hang up the phone and confirm your worst fears, you have three possible courses of action:
You can confront the perpetrator with his accusations and threaten him with a lawsuit for libel. This isn't your best choice, because it's time consuming, emotionally draining and expensive.
You can ask another person at the company with whom you have a good rapport to serve as your reference instead. If the organization is large enough, you can resolve the situation by telling potential employers to call human resources for a reference. While legal policies may restrict HR staffers from giving you a recommendation, they won't destroy your reputation either.
People who leave companies under adverse circumstances often work out agreements with management stating exactly what the company will tell a potential employer about their work and why they left. If you've been fired or terminated because of a reorganization or downsizing, ask your boss for this agreement as part of your severance package. Unless you've done something truly egregious, he'll be relieved to corroborate a mutually agreeable account of why you left and how you benefitted the company (providing legal policies allow him to give more than your name, rank and serial number).
Many job seekers think letters of recommendation are the best vehicles for impressing potential employers. Generally, this isn't true. Why? Because generic letters of recommendation aren't tailored to the needs of a particular company. It's similar to the resume or cover letter that tries to be all things to all people, and ends up not being much of anything to anybody. And because it's addressed, "To Whom It May Concern," it lacks the credibility of a personal phone call. Unless you're going to a foreign country or you're asked to provide a letter of recommendation, rely on verbal references. They're more personal and focus on why an employer would be fortunate to hire you.
A Good Letter of Recommendation
Occasionally you may need a letter of recommendation. You and your reference may be leaving the company at the same time because of a downsizing. You may be moving to another part of the country or the world. You may be terminating under rather unhappy circumstances and you want a letter in hand because you frankly don't trust what a phone call might divulge or because someone has specifically asked you for one.
For your letter to be really effective, you'll need to advise your reference on what to emphasize. Think ahead to the positions you'll most likely pursue and the skills, background and personality traits they require. Then ask your reference to speak to those particular issues when describing your qualifications.
The following letter of reference is for a woman who wants to move from an administrative assistant position to a translating, interpreting and teaching job in international business. She asked her supervisor to put together a letter highlighting her applicable experience in those areas.
Letter of Reference
Good Morning:
Carmen Culpepper has been with START (name changed) since August 1986, when she joined us as a member of the Paratransit team, which administers the program for the physically and mentally challenged population. In her role with this department, Ms. Culpepper specialized in serving as a liaison with the public, prominent business executives, government and community leaders and foreign dignitaries in providing information about the HandiRides program and the agency as a whole.
Because of her facility with Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese, we regularly called on her to interpret at conferences and public meetings. She also has given program presentations to the community and translated letters, manuals, pamphlets, news releases and notices for both internal and external use in Spanish.
Her dedication and zeal for excellence have made Ms. Culpepper an invaluable part of the Paratransit team, and her initiative and creativity in communicating the agency's mission to others has been praiseworthy. While she is most cooperative as part of a group effort, she can definitely think on her feet and meet deadlines under pressure as an individual contributor.
I strongly recommend her for a position of trust, especially one that uses her facility with languages and her affinity for a diversity of people.
Sincerely yours,
Jim Tamblin (name changed)
