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Not getting callbacks from the employers when you send out your resume? Join career expert and award-winning author Andrew LaCivita as he discusses 8 great tips to prove your value on your resume!
I could have titled this post 8 Great Tips to Prove Your Value to Your Employer
Before you non-job-seekers cut out me, this post very accurately could have been titled 8 Great Tips to Prove Your Value to Your Employer. So, stay tuned.
Let’s be honest. How many times do we need to remind our own employers of our awesomeness? I don’t know about you, but I seem to need to remind my guy every day because he can’t remember a thing.
What’s the problem?
Think about the problem. You’re sending out your resume and employers aren’t calling you back. Ouch. [I’ve already explained why that is in How to Get Your Resume Noticed in 5 Seconds Guaranteed.]
Although recruiters are a funky bunch and review those resumes quickly, they do notice an impact player when they see one. So, how do we get you to SHOW you’re that impact player?
First, you need a great layout…
I’ve shot other videos on showing your fabulousness on your resume. (C’mon people. I can’t show you everything in one 10-minute video!)
It’ll be extremely helpful if you check out these little beauties so you know the best layout and so forth. Of course, there are FREE Templates and other things that will make you love me forever:
How to Build the Ultimate Professional Resume (Video, Instruction, and Template)
Immediately DOWNLOAD the FREE Ultimate Professional Resume Template here
This One Trick Will Make Your College Resume Stand Out (Video, Instruction, and Template)
Immediately DOWNLOAD the FREE Ultimate Collegiate Resume Template here
C’mon buddy. Where are my 8 Tips?
Think about what employers care about. Who makes an impact in their organization? People who these things…
- Generate revenue. Employers love people who generate revenue. Do you generate revenue, profits, and acquire new customers? (Check the video for more commentary on this. I won’t say this again for everyone because I hate repeating myself. You get it.)
- Improve market and brand awareness. Hey marketing-type folks! Are you creating a better-known brand? Measure it any way you can. Is your company getting more inquiries or email addresses? Is your website traffic increasing due to content marketing? Google Analytics anyone?
- Customer attraction and leads. Inside sellers or anyone on the front end of sales can be opening doors. You might not be closing the deal for your company, but you’re filling your sales pipeline. Any lead generation works. Managing a booth at an industry fair? Are you collecting business cards or starting a customer or partnership relationship?
- Customer happiness. Service people can rejoice! Maybe you’re a call center operator and helping people who call in because your product or service is broken. You fix it. Voila! What are your customer satisfaction scores? What is your customer retention rate? What about renewals and renewal rate?
- Corporate growth and security. Let’s not forget the executives. Have you done anything related to supporting an Initial Public Offering, acquisition, divestiture, etc. Is your corporate and online security safer?
- Employee happiness. Human resources, recruiters, and all who manage employees can focus on happiness. What are those employee satisfaction scores? Are your employees staying? Is your attrition bad or is your tenure really, really great? Are your recruitment numbers good? Are they healthy? Are your people progressing through their careers and going through the ranks and staying with you because you offer such great opportunities?
- Cost reduction. Yeah baby!! Let’s save some money! Did you do anything to save your company money? That could be anything. It could be optimizing a system that makes you run more efficiently. It could be reducing expenses. Processes you do faster save money.
- Process efficiency. Optimize anything lately? I mean anything?!? Did you optimize a process that lets the rest of the employees do their job easier or faster? Maybe you’re an accountant who figured out a way to reduce your company’s month-end closing cycle from fifteen days to seven days. That saves money. It probably reduces mistakes too. All of that stuff is gold on a resume.
But, Andy, I don’t do those activities at work…
Sure you don’t. If you’re thinking there’s no way I can come up with something like this…
Are you a hostess? How many people do you care for and seat and service each night? Over the course of the year?
Are you a mail carrier? How many houses do you deliver the mail to? How many pounds of mail? How many square miles do you cover every single day, year in and year out?
Are you a mechanic? How many cars have you fixed within the last year?
Are you a project manager? What’s the size of the project budget? Did you complete it on time? How many people did you manage? How many people did you coach? How many people did you mentor?
We could go all day, but I have a time limit and word count limit and your attention span limit.
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Want more advanced material? Join the milewalk Academy and grab some of the free offerings that support the instruction in this post!
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Hey Andy,
I hope all is well. Thanks for your webcats, I find it very interesting.
I am working as Risk Management Engineer in the construction field. I really have a hard time to quantify and show impact.
The main problem is I kinda established the risk management department in the company. So, the challenege here is to articulate the activites and what the value is.
It would be greatly appreciated if you can provide some advice in this regards.
Thanks,
Mohamad
Mohamad, thanks for watching and attending the webcasts too. It’s difficult to be specific without knowing your particular tasks, but one place I’d head is to this vlog post: https://milewalk.com/mwblog/best-way-get-promoted-quickly/. While it looks like it’s a promotion suggestion, there’s actually a career achievements journal FREE download in the post and it will help you with questions that will spawn ideas regarding how to quantify your benefits or highlight the benefits!
Hi Andy,
You have been a blessing to me your advice have been awesome.
I am a Professional dog groomer. I am currently lead groomer having 10 years experience. I am also a current college student pursuing a nursing career (second year) but no degree or certifications yet. However I would like to transition into working in a hospital setting. Maybe clerical or something similar basically just to get my foot in the door for possible promotion upon graduation. and I can’t figure out how to quantify or show impact. What should I do?
Shay, we’ll cover this in the course I just gave you!
Hey, Andy, I have over a years worth of of work experience in the manufacturing industry and I have done forklift, operated machines, done shipping and receiving, and worked in an assembly line for two huge manufacturing companies and I can’t figure out how to quantity or show impact. What should I do or say?”
Will, great question. Think in terms of how many “things” you made on the assembly line. You can quantity in terms of products made, products reviewed, parts made, etc. You can quantify by day, month, quarter, year, etc. Think about what you did on the assembly line and speak to “how many” or how much improved. On the forklift, how many pallets (or whatever it was) were being moved and managed each day? In the shipping/receiving department, how many packages (on average) did you receive and handle or route each day? Those types of questions should get you moving in the right direction!
I have worked most of my life as an assistant/secretary.. I’m unsure of how to show quantity and impact on my resume.
Hey Alice, how many people did you support? How many departments did you support? Were there daily duties, interactions with outside firms, customers, vendors, etc. that you handled? Think in terms of “how many of what did I do each day/month/quarter/year?”
Hello, Andy,
I found your videos on YouTube yesterday and signed up for your blog posts. I also enjoy your videos.
My husband and I moved from Albany, NY to Arizona two years ago when he was laid off from his IT position (his department was outsourced overseas). He’s employed now, but will be retiring next year, and we will be moving to another city.
My background was bank computer operations (obsolete), and insurance claims (I was an assistant-I printed/mailed forms and paid vendor invoices). I also volunteered as an assistant dog trainer for a service dog program. I am presently halfway through the first semester of an online Associate of Science degree program for Veterinary Technician. This degree requires two externships for clinicals, so I started working at a small animal hospital here in my town, hoping that I would be able to do them there. After only 12 days on the job, I was let go by an office manager who is no longer there. (I was trained for one day by a teenager who was there only 3 months prior.)
I’m am 60, and trying to transfer my administrative (non-management, non-sales) skills to those necessary for animal health and/or training.
Any suggestions? Thank you.
Hi Theresa, thanks for the comment! I would definitely check out my livestream on my YouTube channel where I discuss How to Change Careers Successfully. That will help tremendously: https://youtu.be/W0Ytkc5GM08
Hey Andy,
I am a veterinary assistant of 2 years experience from both education and work experience. I was terminated after 6 months in a very low-key veterinary hospital. I haven’t been able to land another job since April. I have applied for every job out there in the veterinary field and have had at least 10 interviews with no luck of a second interview let alone getting hired. Is there any advice you can give me to improve my resume, cover letter or interviewing process to help me land a job?? I am a single mom of three boys and we are struggling financially.
Thanks
Karen, actually, based on what you shared, your issue likely isn’t with your resume. You’ve had 10 interviews! So, you must be doing something right to get employers to speak with you on the phone or in person for the first interview. I would speculate your issue is with interviewing more so than with the resume. The best place to start would be here with my free training: https://www.milewalkacademy.com/p/webinar-3-keys-to-ace-any-job-interview
Hey Andy,
I’m a tutor and I work with a charity in England. We are government funded and we put on courses for the people in the community. Mostly people who have immigrated here and are looking for jobs and to settle here. I used to teach Esol only but have expanded my expertise to Life in the UK, childcare, English for parents, English History. How do I talk about revenue and my impact on the organisation. Thanks
Hi there! This is great! You don’t necessary ned to speak about revenue specifically (you can, of course), but I might start with….
1) How many people have you tutored (daily, weekly, monthly, annually, in your entire career)? i bet it’s a lot!
2) how many different subjects can you teach/tutor
3) you could identify what the average cost is for each student and multiply that by the number you teach annually to show how much revenue you’ve helped gain.
think in these terms!
Thank you for the great tips on improving my resume. Going from “what I am seeking” to “what I offer” was all the difference… Thank You!
You’re welcome George!
Gm Andrew. I owner a painting business for a while and now am back Working as a employee.
In building a Resume i’m not sure how to word the resume and build an impact and quality so that The employer will take a look at my resume first.
hey Andy, i am a geologist, just acquired additional training on instrumentation and control engineering. Worked with car sales/haulage company and can’t figure out how to quantify or show impact. What should i do
Hi Rachel, sorry for the delay, you caught me right in the middle of moving homes and offices and I’m now back up on my feet! When I think of geologists, I think of earth mapping and sampling, material investigation, etc. I know it’s far more complex, but i would wonder:
1) how many miles of the earth have you mapped, reviewed
2) how many different terrains, etc.
3) what improvements have been made based on the data and investigations you’ve performed
The easiest way is to start quantifying the activities you’ve performed/investigated, and then look for ways to see what was done with the information you’ve surfaced.
If you’ve worked with haulage, how much was hauled, how much does your company received from what was hauled, etc. How we you involved in that process.
One of the best tools you can grab to help with all this is my career achievements journal. It will get you thinking about the value of each of your activities. Get that here: https://milewalk.lpages.co/leadbox/1430d183bf72a2:17fd80be1346dc/5731824118530048/
I hope this helps!
Hello Andrew.
Thank you so much, I’m hearing you every morning (by spotify).
I’m Information Security Analyst in a big company and I’m here since 2015. I’ve got great acomplishments at this company and at the previously jobs, whereas I’ve done two big projects, I’ve led two service providers and now I’m leading an internal team in Security Operation.
I’ve set new challenges for my career, I’m looking forward move out of Brazil and I have been applying for openings abroad, but I got few interviews in 4 months and I didn’t get a international position yet.
I’m confident with my acomplishments and the goals I had achieved during my 5 years experience, I would have your feddback to boost my CV and accelerate my objectives.
Thank you to be helping.
Silvio! Thanks for your comment. There are many things that contribute to getting the right job interviews–a nice cover letter, resume, LinkedIn profile, and so on. You also need a persistent job search strategy. And, once you land the job interview, you need to nail it. I have free and paid coaching in all these areas and I suggest you check out the milewalkacademy.com to see the videos, webinars, and downloads. One item I want to point you to, is my career achievements journal (https://milewalk.lpages.co/leadbox/1430d183bf72a2:17fd80be1346dc/5731824118530048/). Check that out because if you can capture your accomplishments with that tool and then get them into your resume (and stories as you interview), you will be in great shape!!
Hey, Andy, in my last position I was a software developer maintaining an online tax application. The app as a whole certainly saved money for our clients and streamlined their tax processes, but I was just one developer on a team of 8. How would I quantify my individual contributions to the app?
Nick, you can actually quantify whatever you think is noteworthy. For example, how many programs/scripts did you write, how many modules did you build/maintain, etc. You can also talk about how much the system saved for your clients and how much it reduced the their time and so forth. The fact that you were one developer is okay. You are giving context for the entire program you contributed to. The main point is you’re giving the reviewer insight into what you built!
Sam: Hi Andy thank you for your online videos and blog, I’m a Software Development and Delivery Manager for a Vacation Rentals company and I do manage a portfolio of applications for Sales and Marketing and a 4 member Development Team and I can’t figure out how to quantity or show impact.
What should I do?”
Hi Andy I am an independent procurement consultant and I work for companies were I do not see their revenue or know the impact of my work. For instance I will help an audit team audit the procurement function of an institution or write a procurement manual for clients. I work mostly alone and as an independent consultant I do not get any information on their scope and numbers tendered for.
Hey Andy, I am a physical Education teacher and am tying to switch careers to a sales position. Struggling to word my achievments. For exa,pile I wa awarded a grant, so I called that generated income for my department. I have coordinated School events,
Mike, search the blog for career changer information and also head to my youtube channel and check out the career changer playlist!
Good morning Mr. LaCivita,
I watch your videos all the time to get an idea of how to pit together a resume.
My current job is an Auditor. I go audit probation offices programs by looking at whether they are following the Division’s policies, special Grant conditions, and their own policies and procedures. How would I use these steps to tailor a resume?
I have been in this position for 2 years, also during my career with the state I was also the Unit Risk Manager for a unit and have 3 years of auditing as well as 7 years of Risk Management.
Thank you for your assistance.
Nice Information Kindly update us like this
I will and thank you!
Hi Andy! I’m a bit late to the party. I work as a general clerk for an electric co-op, starting out in customer service, but now I deliver the interoffice mail. I want to transition into a full-time marketing or copywriting position. I’ve done freelance copywriting for mostly Internet marketing clients, mostly content creation like ebooks and white papers, a few sales letters, not many quantifiable or impressive conversion numbers. I’m also a published novelist and short story writer. I’ve been job hunting for 19 years! How do I include the type of stuff you recommend–which I don’t have–without lying?
quite impressive and informative blog. thanks
Hi, Andy! Question: How can I improve my branding stateament, a more solid statement of purpose to go into my Career Profile? I just watched this video (which captures this resume points you have made during some of our recent LIVE events) to see what is missing from my value focus of my resume. I am so happy to realize that my resume is full of specific examples and results of each of these. I recently removed a position that I held from 1999-2008 because I received enough feedback that is was distracting. I agreed. But I am receiving feedback from several new networking opportunities that it is week in communicating my unique value. Thank you!