I wrote about Beverly Harvey yesterday and there was a blog post she wrote that triggered today’s post 🙂
A few years ago we introduced a new feature called the Job Journal inside JibberJobber. Â This is oh-so-valuable.
Let me lean on Beverly Harvey’s post to bring out some of her ideas:
“… these stories are a critical component in your resume, leadership addendum, positioning statement and other marketing collateral, as well as in your interview.”
She is talking about PAR statements (problem/action/result) and also calls them OAR, CAR and STAR.
Absolutely.
Here’s a funny thing – during my career I had plenty of PAR situations that I would have used in an interview, on a resume, or in a networking conversation.
However, my brain wasn’t thinking about all the great things I could accomplish. (for more on this read my most popular post: Â “Depression Clouds Everything“)
It was somewhere between “I’m obviously a loser because I’ve been out of work for ___ months” and “Oh my gosh how am I going to pay ___ bill this month??”
That is what I was thinking.
My ability to remember and think logically was hampered by my immediate needs.
And, the way I was treated as a job seeker made me disbelieve anything good I ever accomplished in my career.
DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU ARE UNEMPLOYED TO WRITE YOUR STORIES!
If you are unemployed, spend FOUR hours today … TODAY … and brainstorm your PAR statements.
Then, go into JibberJobber and put them in there. Â You can put 25 entries into the Job Journal as a free (Regular) user… and unlimited if you upgrade.
This is SO critical!
Jason,
The PAR (SAR, STAR or whatever you call them) statements are huge and Beverly is dead on. I send everyone instructions and worksheets to complete and I have clients that actually carry them and read them over and over prior to interviews. Here is a link to the folder on Box.net that contains them for you and your readers. Feel free to share.
https://www.box.net/shared/3zdpgbeb0t
If anyone has questions, feel free to email me.
Rgds,
Brad
I’m a believer. The PAR statements make a critical difference in both keeping you from feeling like a loser for not having a job, and for positioning yourself as the ideal job candidate on your resume.
I kept putting off the effort. I guess subconsciously I didn’t really believe I had any successes. But, finally one day recently, I just buckled down and started making notes of my successful experiences with each company I’d worked for. My brain hurt at the end of the day, but it completely changed my approach.
I then took the rough notes, fine tuned them into brief, succinct PAR statements and transferred them to one of my resume versions. It’s pretty powerful let me tell you.
What a boost of confidence it gave me! What a powerful statement it gave my resume! On my resume, instead of a long boring list of every job and responsibility I had, it zooms right into where I added the most value. I can pick and choose from my PAR statements to customize the resume for the type of job I’m targeting. It’s a GREAT exercise for every current and future job seeker.
@Brad, thanks for the resources 🙂
@Mary Lou, thank you for that awesome comment – I’m making it today’s (monday) post, with some of my comments.