This article provides the guidance that will help you package yourself in the way most likely to impress and influence the buyer--the potential employer who will want to make a job offer to you.
This article demands your concentration and time because it represents the development of the basis for your subsequent presentations. Be generous with the time you devote to this material.
What will motivate an employer to hire you? First, he likes you. If he doesn't like you, you can forget about the job. But getting an employer to like you is only half the battle. The employer must also believe you will be able to help him solve his problems. If the employer didn't have problems, there would be no need for him to hire you or anyone else.
This article will focus your attention on the most important aspect of your preparation, your packaging. The employer has only slight interest about where you have been, what titles you have had bestowed upon you, or the responsibilities of your previous jobs. What will influence him is what you have achieved in business. Those are your accomplishments, and they are the key to convincing a prospective employer that you are going to help him solve his problems.
The essence of packaging YOU lies in communicating your accomplishments properly. Your accomplishments become your arsenal. They are the ammunition you will be firing at prospective employers throughout your job hunting campaign. Your accomplishments will communicate to the employer, "This is the job candidate who can solve my problems."
You might think any reasonably educated person would understand the word "accomplishments" and would easily name a few of his or her own, but that is rarely the case. In fact, most job hunting managers find it very difficult to recall and identify their accomplishments. When you ask them to put their accomplishments into words, it becomes an insurmountable task. When asked, "Tell me what you've done?" or, "What have you accomplished?" or, "Give me a fist of your most significant achievements?" most job hunters get tongue-tied. Their minds go blank, and they say things like, "I can't think of anything," or, "I can't remember any specific accomplishments," or, "What I've done is too complicated to explain." Like it or not, you must start remembering what you have achieved so you can express your accomplishments as clearly, forcefully, and succinctly as any marketing expert does when describing the selling features of any product being placed on the market.
One reason many job hunters find it hard to identify and express their accomplishments is that it goes against a lifetime habit of being modest. Most of us try to be modest. Boasting and bragging are not admired traits. When you were growing up, your parents and teachers drummed into you the idea that, "Good little boys and girls don't go around bragging," so you hesitate to praise yourself. But, job hunting time is definitely not the time for modesty. This is the time to proclaim loudly and clearly, "I did this!" or, "I was responsible for that!"
What are Accomplishments?
Your accomplishments are those significantly successful things you have done over the many years of your business life. They are the achievements of your career, the things you did well, results for which you can be justly proud. In the context of job hunting, your accomplishments are the evidence that will enable the prospective employer to realize you will be able to make a valuable contribution to the success of his operation.
Many job hunters think they express their accomplishments by telling an interviewer where they have worked and for how long. It is easy for them to rattle off names of companies, durations of employment, and job titles. For example, "I worked for x years for the ABC Company as Credit Manager."
Sometimes the fact you have worked for a particular prestigious company may carry weight but, in general, longevity and titles are not what influence the prospective employer. He wants to know if you can help solve his problems, therefore he wants to know what you have done that might persuade him to hire you.
Writing Accomplishments by Considering Job Functions
Your first step is to write out a job description. Break down your past jobs into the various functions you performed. You are aiming at eight, ten, or even fifteen specific functions comprising each job. These are what everyone in your profession does; therefore these are what the prospective employer will be looking for when considering you for that type of position.
For example, if you are a Controller, one function on your list will be Budgeting. Another will be Preparing Financial Statements. A third function will be Preparation of Tax Returns. Payroll, Cost Accounting, Credit and Collections are among the several other functions of any Controller's position.
After you have completed this list of functions (or your functional job description), go down the list and ask yourself, "For each of these functions, what have I done that was significant or noteworthy, things for which I am proud of?"
If Budgeting was the first function on your list, look back over your career, starting with your most recent job, and try to identify at least two or three accomplishments showing how experienced and knowledgeable you are in that particular functional area.
Focus on each function, one by one, to develop your list of accomplishments. Try to match each function with a minimum of two accomplishments. When considering you for a position, a prospective employer will look down your list of achievements and easily see you are competent in all facets of the job. This will lead to the conclusion that you can do everything needed, therefore you will be able to solve their problems.
Another approach is to write out a functional job description for a hypothetical boss. Make a list of all of your superior's responsibilities relating to your area. Ask yourself, "What are the problems that will spin through his head as he tries to fall asleep each night?" Then try to develop a list of accomplishments that speak directly to each of these problems.
For example, our job hunting Controller knows that his or her new boss worries, among other things, about getting financial statements on a timely basis so that better management decisions can be made. Another thing of concern to his boss would be prompt collection of receivables and avoidance of bad debt write-offs. The Controller candidate should have among his ammunition some accomplishments along the following lines:
- Developed computer programs for collection of data which accelerated completion of statements from 50 to 30 days.
- Reorganized procedures reducing average age of receivables from 73 to 45 days adding $2 million to working capital.
- Established tough credit approval rules and enforced collections which cut bad debts from 2% to .5% of sales.
This functional approach applies whether you are in sales, manufacturing, engineering, or any other field. When you break down your profession or field functionally, you demonstrate a broad understanding of your role in the organization, and your accomplishments demonstrate that you are capable of handling assignments in all areas of your function.
Chronological Approach to Accomplishments
Another good way to develop a powerful list of accomplishments is to go back in time from your most recent job, focusing on each time frame in order to bring to memory all of the impressive things you have done.
Assuming that it is now the early part of the year, concentrate on the second half of last year and think of everything you were involved in and did during that six month period, everything of which you are proud of. Stick with that time frame until you are certain you have explored everything that happened.
How difficult this can be will not become apparent until you have tried it. When actively employed, you are busy fighting fires and you don't think of your actions as "accomplishments." This process is even harder when you are unemployed. With your money running out and your morale low, it is hard to get your mind to think positively. Many an accomplished executive will say, "I didn't do a blasted thing in the last half of last year."
This is a defeatist, negative view which serves no purpose. Even though you are now unemployed, you are a serious, conscientious individual trying to make a living. You have tried to give value to your prior employers by performing to the best of your ability. You are not ashamed of what you have done, and you have accomplished much for which you can be justly proud. Keep concentrating on those past six months.
What projects did you work on? Which ones did you complete? How many sales calls did you make? How many units did your department produce? Did you change any procedure? Did you have a single new idea? Think, and think some more. You did not sit around vegetating for six whole months. You acted and you interacted. Make a list of the things you did. Break down the period by months, weeks, or days, if necessary.
Take as much time as you need and do not leave the second half of last year until you are positive you have dredged up everything of importance that took up your time and attention. Now you are ready to examine the first half of last year. Look at your notes and your files. What projects or assignments did you work on? Do you keep a diary or a calendar? You will be amazed at the accomplishments that lie buried in your past which you have forgotten.
Don't leave this new time frame too quickly. If you say you did nothing for six months, that is hard to believe. Someone saw fit to hand you a paycheck twice a month. You must have been doing a few things satisfactorily or you would not have been kept on the job. During this six month period you drove to work around one hundred and thirty times and you spent over one thousand hours on the job. Were you sleepwalking all those hours? Of course not! Think. Think of the many things you did.
Continue your slow journey back through time. The last half of the prior year. The first half. The last half of the year before that. The first half of that year. What did you do that made you proud? Did you get any raises? Did you get a promotion? What did you do to earn it? Did you receive praise from a superior? Which of your actions earned that praise? If you did something that earned the praise of a prior employer, you must assume prospective employers will be equally impressed. The most effective way to tell them about it is through your Accomplishments.
How far back in time should you travel in search of prize achievements? Keep working on it for as long as it takes to develop a list of twenty-five to thirty good accomplishments. Forty Plus of Southern California insists on twenty-five accomplishments before a member is allowed to proceed to other job hunting techniques. This is a number any experienced manager should be able to develop with a little effort.
