JOB SEEKERS. SOLOPRENEURS. SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS. ACCOMPLISHMENTS. ACHIEVEMENTS. RESULTS.
If knowing how to tell your story in terms of the bottom line problems you have faced and fixed, or the results you have achieved for your customers, is important to you, please read on.
I am a résumé strategist. I created Professional Profile© to help you tell your “stories” in an effective and authentic manner.
My definite purpose is to guide job seekers and solopreneurs to stand out and shine, one Professional Profile© at a time.
EXAMPLES OF EFFECTIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS STATEMENTS THAT HAVE EARNED INTERVIEWS:
In the actual examples that follow, you will read about accomplishments of a 19-year-old motivational speaker who got shot in a case of mistaken identity and wants to keep kids out of gangs, a waitress in her 60s who was laid off from one day to the next, a young professional who used the process to transition from hospitality management to on-line classified sales, and a range of others in between.
Please read on and learn how different people first identified their business accomplishments and skills and then used that information to make their résumés (their Professional Profiles) stand out and get the results they wanted.
Project Management Consultant
For decades, a man in his mid-60s had been a successful self-employed project management consultant. Suddenly he stopped winning contracts and hit a wall that lasted two-year. While helping him create skills and accomplishments data banks that he could customize to present himself as the ideal candidate for contracts he sought, he had an epiphany. When he completed the prework, he told me he had learned more about himself in that three hours of time than he had over 40 years of work. Then, when I gave him his completed résumé, he read it word-for-word and when he had finished, sat in silence and stared at it for about a minute. Speaking to himself in a very small voice he said, “Where have you been all my life?” Finally becoming aware of all the potential that he brought to the ‘world of work,’ he saw how his life could have been, and how it would be when he got back on track. The formats of his new résumé and targeted cover letter gave him new energy. He quickly found reemployment and regained stability. Sadly, he died of a sudden heart attack two years later, but those final two years were very good ones.
Project Manager
After helping this project manager think beyond her job duties and activities to identify her most significant business accomplishments and skills, I created an effective functional résumé that gained her an interview. After writing her essays and distilling them down to what she thought was the essence of her accomplishments, I asked, “So what?” a number of times until we had really drilled down and truly identified the essence of each accomplishment. In addition to creating a targeted résumé and cover letter, we conducted practice interviews, critiqued her responses and practiced some more. She won the job.
IT Specialist
I helped a young Navy veteran who had been a LAN manager while on active duty (got his GED while in the Navy; no college degree) create the functional résumé that earned him an interview for an IT position at a prestigious engineering university. I coached him to think about his professional time in the Navy not in terms of his day-to-day IT duties and responsibilities, but rather in terms of what he had actually accomplished during that time. Even when we do our jobs effectively day-in-and-day- out, we are often unaware of the relevance and worth of what we have done. Because he had done his job honorably and well, and because he is my son, I wanted him to see himself and the value of his work through the eyes of a potential employer. He got the interview and the position, beating some 50 other candidates, most with computer science degrees and more years of experience.
Motivational Speaker
I wrote a functional résumé and targeted cover letter that helped an extraordinary young man move from retail sales to become a concierge in a luxury apartment. Just 19 at the time, he was a published author. His goal is to be a motivational speaker and help street kids either stay out, or get out, of gangs. But on his way to greatness, he needed a job to help take care of his mom and his cousin. After several discussions, he began to see himself in terms of his accomplishments and skills, and he realized they could be packaged and presented so he would be a viable candidate for higher-level jobs. The day after he submitted his package, the apartment general manager called and he went in for his interview. Within a week he was hired. And, shortly after accepting the concierge position, a second company, a huge multinational, invited him to interview for a sales position, one that offered a generous base salary, full benefits, an enticing compensation package and a company car.
Gardener
I helped a woman use her special skills and abilities as well as her personal accomplishments to overcome her lack of credentials or experience to land the job of her dreams, after she had been told by the same company that she was not qualified for the job she wanted. Retired after four decades doing administration and forced back to work due to the economy, the thought of having to go back into administration made her ill and depressed. Her passion was gardening and she wanted to care for flowers in a garden shop. After attending one of my functional résumé writing workshops, she put together a targeted cover letter and functional résumé, and included a number of spectacular photos of her garden to counterbalance her lack of credentials or paid gardening experience. She submitted her packet and this time was called for an interview, was hired and immediately became an exemplary employee. Pun intended, she ”blossomed” in her new customer service role, and in the off-season the company wants to send her to get her gardening certificate.
Technical Trainer
I helped a client with extensive experience as a financial trainer create a functional résumé and targeted cover letter that successfully made its way through a major metropolitan city’s recruiting bureaucracy to win her an interview. Many people with significant business accomplishments do not consider what they have done to be significant because in their eyes, they were “just doing their jobs.” Sometimes those people need help in seeing themselves from a different perspective. After spending time helping her refocus on the relevance of her accomplishments, I put together a functional résumé and cover letter that demonstrated why she was the ideal solution to the needs the city was trying to meet. When he called to invite her for an interview, the recruiting officer told her she was just what they were looking for and apologized for the length of time it took them to contact her. Thrilled to hear that they liked her experience, she thanked them for their interest and declined the interview because she had been accepted into graduate school and was moving out-of-state.
Waitress:
A participant in one of my functional résumé-writing workshops was a waitress in her 60s. She had been at the same Interstate exit restaurant for 25 years and was laid off when the restaurant closed from one day to the next. It was critical she find work as soon as possible. When we got to the accomplishments part of the workshop, she said, “I’m just a waitress. I don’t have any accomplishments.” I asked if she had experience turning angry customers into happy ones? “All the time. It was part of my job,” she said. I told her that each occasion she had done that was a separate accomplishment and that companies paid for customer service skills like that. I suggested she build her new functional résumé around her ten most spectacular “guest saves.” Two classes later she came back, with her grandson. She told the class she had followed my process and my suggestion. She about exploded with pride when she told us about the interviews, the 500 applicants (many much younger) she beat out and her tips (four times more than before) that she now enjoyed.
Organization Development Professional
I created a targeted cover letter and functional résumé for a man in his early 60s who for six months had sent out a generic résumé for different jobs and had gotten no calls for interviews. Ten days after submitting his new targeted résumé and cover letter, he was called for a phone interview and then had a face-to-face interview. I helped him sort through his 40-year career and identify his most significant accomplishments and later assembled his final new functional résumé and wrote the targeted cover letter. The interviewer (hiring manager) complimented him on his résumé, saying that he appreciated the thoroughness of the information he provided because it enabled him to spend more time getting to know my client, rather than taking interview time to discuss accomplishments. Ultimately, my client was not selected, but the résumé did its job: it got him the interview.
Electrical Engineer
During a spin-off when current employees faced job elimination and had to compete for positions in a newly-formed organization, I created an accomplishments-based résumé that enabled this engineer to successfully compete. My client had decades of successful service in his company, and I helped him sort through his many accomplishments and select the ones that would be most relevant to support his candidacy for positions in the spin-off company. I then prepared his functional résumé. When organizational change is thrust upon someone has worked for one company for decades and they must compete for the jobs they have been doing successfully, it is sometimes difficult to know how to effectively package yourself to be successful in a new work environment. Based on the requirements for the position he wanted, we put together a functional résumé that highlighted his most significant and relevant accomplishments, and the skills he used to achieve them. He showed himself to be the best qualified and he got the job.
Systems and Sensors Engineering Manager
When I began helping this brilliant engineer create a résumé to become head of the engineering department for a large multinational engineering corporation, he was primarily focused on the fourth of the four essay questions: the quantified results. By coaching him to consider his primary accomplishments in terms of the other three questions (WHAT, HOW and WHY) we created a much more multidimensional résumé that enabled him to stand out from his competition. I acted as a filter to keep the content of his essays focused on the actual accomplishment as it related to the job requirements. While the intent was to create a multifaceted résumé, I wanted to make certain we used the correct key words and maintained overall focus. Such was his brilliance that he easily stood head and shoulders above the other candidates and he got the job. The department he took over was steeped in traditional thinking, and as a result they were paying the price for not having kept up with the intellectual times. The scope of his intellect and skills was just what they needed.
Electrical Engineer
Using the résumé he and I jointly created as his foundation, this eclectic, brilliant 4.0 graduate of an ivy league university created a job for himself where none had previously existed. Laid off from his technical sales job when his company switched to distributor representatives, I was shocked to see that he was using a commonplace, boring generic reverse-chronological résumé. We created a document and strategy to match his brilliance. He identified just one place where he wanted to work. He researched that organization, identified significant new potential markets, and needs that were going unmet. He created a custom marketing plan that would take advantage of the opportunities they had not yet identified. Whether they hired him or not, the plan was theirs to keep. It told them what they needed to do, but not how. Anticipating that the senior VP of marketing and sales might consider him a threat and simply toss his letter, résumé and marketing plan, he sent the CEO as packet as well. Within a week they contacted him and one week later he negotiated a great package and was back to work. Total layoff time: one month.
NOTE: His former boss, for whom I also wrote a functional résumé, insisted on modifying my format to be more reverse-chronological and generic. Six months after my client was hired, his boss was still floating his paper.
Transition from Hospitality Management to Classified Advertising Sales:
Recruited directly out of college into a hospitality management position, seven years later I helped this young woman create a broadcast cover letter and functional résumé that enabled her to seek referrals from within her network and transition from her senior management level position to a senior newspaper sales position. This was a very rapid collaboration because she was already familiar with the process of creating a functional résumé and a targeted cover letter; I merely added some ideas and edited and polished some of the content. I was working with my daughter. She improved upon what I taught her about writing targeted cover letters and functional résumés and we created a cool and effective packet. I was honored that she sought my input. She created a uniquely memorable format to showcase her most relevant sales accomplishments, while at the same time displaying her creativity and her personality in a very engaging manner. She got the job she was aiming at. People kept and circulated her letter and résumé, and for more than a year after she started her new job, she kept getting calls.
CORPORATE OUTPLACEMENT
Supporting a Human Resources Vice President
When a regional company had to lay off a number of administrative employees with 20+ years of service in several of their branches in small towns from South Carolina to Pennsylvania , I traveled to client sites and provided custom outplacement services that were both effective and cost-effective. The company’s HR vice president was a caring person and knew that jobs were scarce in the small towns where the layoffs would occur. In addition to severance packages, she wanted to give her employees all possible reemployment help. Their prework completed, I created their unique functional résumés, taught them to write their own targeted cover letters, developed individual job search strategies customized to each of their own small towns, and provided filmed and critiqued interviewing training. When I left each site, participants felt confident of being able to use their new skills to find work. My portion of the downsizing was successful. Those who lost their jobs harbored no anger toward the company, nor did any of my students bring legal actions.
CIGNA Worldwide Outplacement
When Corporate decided to close the Latin American Area headquarters in Florida, 90 people lost their jobs. As the Latin American Area Human Resources Director, I was assigned to create and manage an in-house outplacement center for those individuals. My responsibilities included writing functional résumés for each of them . I trained all 90 people in the basics of how to write a functional résumé and once they had written their essays, I distilled their words into marketable accomplishments that they would use in their résumés. Over a period of two months, we completed all 90 functional résumés and cover letters. Interspersed over that time we videotaped, reviewed and critiqued practice interviews and developed job search plans. This iteration of corporate restructuring was a global affair. Using in-house resources to provide outplacement services was cost-efficient for the corporation and a great learning experience for me. Eighty-nine of the 90 individuals found new jobs that were equal to or better than the ones they lost. The 90th individual decided she wanted to take her newrésumé back to the Caribbean and lay on the beach for a while, so she did. I consider my batting average to be 100%.
If you are a job seeker, think of the largely unchanged résumé you send out over and over each time you apply for a new position. If you use your LinkedIn site as a job search tool, think how it lists your work history but says nothing of your job accomplishments. If you are a solopreneur, think of your website that lists your services and client testimonials but does not tell the world what you have actually achieved for your clients.
The generic and unchanging résumé, LinkedIn site or solopreneur website … all are static and boring. And when people pass over and leave, you lose.
Now please consider the professional profile. It is based on your accomplishments and skills.
Whether you use it to apply for a job, post it on LinkedIn or feature it prominently on your website, it makes you stand out. It tells people what you have accomplished.
Your professional profile is a flexible, customizable, living document that grows with you as you accomplish more and acquire new skills. By keeping it always up-to-date and current, you can instantly present yourself as an “ideal candidate” or an “ideal vendor” by adapting the contents to the requirements of any position or contract for which you are applying.
WHAT I WANT FOR YOU:
Corny as it may sound, I want to see job seekers get the jobs they want and get back to work doing what they love to do. I want Solopreneurs to thrive by telling people about what they have accomplished for other clients.
I want to help people get out from under the pain of unemployment. I want them to keep their homes.
I want people to regain their self-confidence. I want their self-esteem to explode, and their chests to swell with the pride of their own accomplishments. I want kids to be proud of their parents.
Scoring the job interview or the initial client meeting is the first step.
And for that to happen quickly, you need to have a Professional Profile that catches the reader’s eye and hold their interest.
In addition to being customized for each position for which you apply, your Professional Profile needs to stand out, like a meatball on a plate of spaghetti!
FOR THOSE SENDING OUT RÉSUMÉS:
If you saw an ad for an immediate opening that was right up your alley, or got a call for an interview in two hours, could you review the job requirements then create a customized résumé and cover letter and get your packet to the right people within 60 minutes?
Unfortunately for so many job seekers during this critical economic time, they couldn’t do that if their life depended upon it.
That’s the way it is when you use a static, generic, one-size-fits-all reverse-chronological résumé that has no flexibility because it is focused on your job chronology, job duties and activities. Unfortunately, one size does not fit all.
There’s power in telling others about the results you have achieved.
Too many job seekers are unable to tell an interviewer, (assuming they are lucky enough to even get an interview,) about how things were better in their former company as a result of their having been there, about the bottom line problems they have solved, about what measurable contributions they have made to their company’s bottom line, about specifically why they were an asset to their former company, and why they will clearly be an asset to the new company.
Those who cannot do that lose out to those who can.
If your résumé is causing you to lose out, you need a Professional Profile.
FOR THOSE USING LINKED-IN TO LOOK FOR WORK
Companies and recruiters looking for candidates troll LinkedIn.
Does your current profile just talk about your job history, job duties and responsibilities? What happens if your job history is inconsistent and does not reflect well on you?
Companies and recruiters use LinkedIn to disqualify candidates too.
Can you see how effectively presenting your history of significant accomplishments might soften the impact of a sketchy job history, to the point that you might get an interview?
Said another way: If you were a recruiter using LinkedIn to source people to contact for jobs and you found your profile, would you be impressed and call you, or would you move on to someone else?
FOR ENTREPRENEURS AND SMALL BUSINESSES WITH WEBSITES:
Is your website like so many of your competitors: you dedicate space to describing the services you offer and the testimonials your clients have given you?
Client testimonials are wonderful to have, and because they are written by the customer, they only tell the customer’s half the story, and often in vague, general terms.
And really, how often are you motivated to do business with someone based on vague, general information?
When you come right down to it, it’s your story to tell and it’s all about the results you’ve achieved for your clients. And who better to tell that story than you?
If you are not using a Professional Profile, you are missing a powerful opportunity to tell your story your way.
Please let me anticipate and address a probable objection: confidentiality. I am in no way suggesting you divulge confidential information. I AM saying I can show you a very straightforward process to tell the world of your accomplishments while still maintaining the sanctity of client confidentiality.
