How to Demonstrate Your Impact
By Soozy G. Miller, CPRW, CDCC, CDP
I know that you constantly hear that you need to show on a resume (and a LinkedIn profile) why you’re the better candidate and how to demonstrate your expertise.
Many people think that hard work and “getting the job done” make you different, but they simply don't. Everyone works hard, and everyone has to get the job done. It’s amazing to me how many C-Suite leaders don’t know how to show their impact.
If you can show how your expertise and your experience made the company better somehow, that’s what the hiring team wants to know about.
You may have been instructed to tell a story about your accomplishments (e.g. STAR, SAR, SOAR techniques), but stating an accomplishment can be even easier than that.
It’s actually very easy and simple to write a value statement. Let me break it down into 2 easy steps.
STEP 1: For every statement in your Experience section, ask yourself:
How did I add/contribute to revenue?
How did I improve a process or procedure?
How did my work benefit a client?
How did my work save the company time and/or money?
How did I develop/expand the business?
How did I increase the customer base?
How did I improve/enhance a project?
How did I solve a problem?
How did I enhance teamwork?
How did I improve policy? Compliance?
How did I influence someone to make a better decision?
How did I use data to improve something or solve a problem?
The answers are your value-add. You’re not going to be able to answer every one of these questions for every position, but at least the list will give you good food for thought. I’ll bet that by asking yourself these questions you’ll come up with more details and juicier information than you thought you would.
STEP 2: For every question above that has an answer, simply state the answer followed by the action you took to create that answer. For example:
Increased sales revenue 30% by hiring more regional sales managers.
Reduced employee turnover 10% by negotiating better benefits terms with the company insurance broker.
Enhanced employee and executive relations by establishing annual meetings including hosting smaller Q&A panels.
Reduced equipment theft by establishing exit interviews.
It’s really that simple. No acronyms to remember, no writing out a story until you get it right. State the impact clearly, and then state how you created the impact. You don’t really need more than that information to show impact on your resume (and LinkedIn profile). The simpler the statement, and the more that you use statistics, metrics, numbers, percentages, estimates, etc., the more powerful the statement.
On your resume (and LinkedIn) you don’t need to tell a story to make your point. You just need a bunch of short, focused, strong statements. In fact, for impact statements on a resume (and LinkedIn profile), the shorter the statement the more impact it will have.
Value-add is simple. You did it, and now you have simple a way to demonstrate it.
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Better job. More pay. More control.
For a free resume review, please contact us at Control Your Career!