When college algebra is a distant memory and a calculator is available on every cell phone, it is easy to lose appreciation for equations. But as you write the perfect resume, one particular equation is your ticket to the top of the interview pile. Pull out your TI-84 and let’s get down to business.

In last month’s article, “Toolbox Inventory Will Help You Land a Job,” we compiled and evaluated job skills for each professional, volunteer, and relevant experience. But simply listing your job skills is not enough to catch the eye of a prospective employer. This month, we will take the identified skills and link them to results in order to create powerful selling statements in your resume.

Powerful selling statements are created using the following formula:

Result + How = Job Skill

For resume development, results are anything you accomplished that benefitted the company, customers or clients. They provide tangible examples of how hiring you will benefit a potential employer. Results that get most employers’ attention include:
·                 increasing efficiency, revenues, sales, or
productivity
·                 improving safety, documentation processes,
or customer service
·                 decreasing costs, overhead, or challenges
·                 creating new products, procedures, or
campaigns

“How” is a concise description of the steps you took or work you accomplished to get the highlighted result. “How” is usually an observable action and varies widely from industry to industry and company to company. We’ll look at examples momentarily.

Build a Powerful Selling Statement from a Job Skill
Taking the three components of the equation, build your powerful selling statement. You can work the equation beginning with job skill or beginning with result. We will start with a job skill.

Step One: Grab a job skill off your list from last month. As an example, we will use “excellent teamwork.”

Step Two: Identify a result related to the selected job skill. In our example, our faux-employee worked with three departments (demonstrating teamwork) to “increase order processing efficiency.”

Step Three: Explain how you accomplished the result. Our faux-employee “collaborated with three departments to develop a new procedure that improved communication processes.”

Step Four: Arrange your result and your “how,” then link to your job skill. Our example creates the following powerful selling statement:

“(result) Increased order processing efficiency by (how) collaborating with three departments to develop a new procedure that improved communication process demonstrating (job skill) excellent teamwork skills.”

This powerful selling statement is significantly more effective at conveying your teamwork skills than simply listing the skill on your resume. It also indicates that our faux-employee’s teamwork skills result in cost savings thanks to improved efficiencies. A potential employer can visualize how the faux-employee might exemplify this desired skill. This example could also demonstrate other job skills such as the ability to create innovative solutions or demonstrate exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
Tip: It pays to track numbers, percentages, and all quantifiable work data. For example, we can bump up the strength of this powerful selling statement by adding specific numbers:
“Increased daily orders processed by 12% through collaboration with three departments to develop a new communication process demonstrating excellent teamwork skills and innovative problem solving.”
This powerful selling statement indicates that our faux-employee can make a potential employer more money by improving the number of orders processed daily. Who wouldn’t want an employee that makes the company cash through creative use of teamwork?

Build a Powerful Selling Statement from a Result
In the previous example, we started with a job skill to create a powerful selling statement. Use a similar process when beginning with a result you are particularly proud of and would like to highlight.

Step One: Identify the result. In our example, our faux-employee “increased sales an average of 25% each year surpassing sales goals by 15%.”

Step Two: Explain how you accomplished the result. Our faux-employee “established an average of fifteen new major accounts yearly, negotiated more lucrative contracts, and strengthened client relationships.”

Step Three: Determine what job skills the result and “how” demonstrate. Our faux-employee’s result demonstrates exceptional sales, negotiation, and client relationship skills, but those skills are already obvious in the statement. Instead of restating these skills, add applicable skills that are less obvious. For example, the result and “how” also demonstrate the ability to expand markets and the ability to develop loyal clients.

Put it together for a powerful selling statement:
“Increased sales 25% each year (10% above sales goals) by establishing an average of fifteen new major accounts yearly, negotiating more lucrative contracts, and strengthening client relationships demonstrating capacity to expand markets and develop client loyalty.”

Again, this statement is much more effective at selling value as an employee than simply listing “excellent sales, negotiation, and client relationship skills.”

Final Tips
Hopefully you are getting the hang of combining result and “how” to highlight job skills. While there is no precise rule on the number of powerful selling statements to include in your resume, I recommend the following: depending on the length of your career, the number of contributions you made to previous employers, and the position you are applying for, it is usually appropriate to include 1-3 powerful selling statements for each position. Executive level applicants should include more, as many as six. Strive for succinct and when in doubt, error on the side of fewer statements rather than more.

Each of the above examples used the word “demonstrating” to link result and “how” to the job skills. Avoid using “demonstrating” for each powerful selling statement to prevent redundancy and to improve effectiveness of the overall resume. Words like “illustrating,” “proving,” “indicating,” and “displaying” are nice alternatives.

Powerful selling statements are effective because they provide clear examples of how hiring you will benefit an employer. At the end of the day, that is what a resume should accomplish—communicate your value as an employee to a potential employer. Tune in next month as we begin assembling the resume to find out where to place powerful selling statements within your resume.

From her barn in Bozeman, Liz Williams helps job seekers land interviews with professionally-written resumes. Learn more at writerla.com and follow Liz on Facebook at facebook.com/writerla to get more tips on resume writing.