Continuing to look back at the early years of A Storied Career while I finalize my e-book, Storied Careers and prepare for hosting a teleseminar on 09-09-09. New entries will resume soon.
Career coach Wendy J. Terwelp touts the value of story, or case studies, in the job search, noting that job-seekers can the same strategy that marketers use in promoting products “to promote what you can do for a company — without sounding like an infomercial.” It really works, Terwelp proclaims, continuing:
This strategy helps demonstrate your expertise during — and after — an interview. Develop at least three case studies that demonstrate your expertise. Keep each study to one page per study, if possible. Name it something exciting, such as: “New Web Strategy Tripled Sales for X Marks the Spot Marketing.” Avoid too much jargon to make it an easy read.
For example, if you are a web designer, provide the Challenge encountered when developing a particular website. Perhaps it was capturing the company’s personality in an exciting way or creating an exciting e-commerce solution that would triple online business in the first six months. Provide the Action steps you took to achieve the Results. This can include the way you developed the web concept and marketing plan, structured the site, researched effective keywords, partnered with outside resources, etc. Then describe the Results. What happened with the project? If you have stats that demonstrate the amount of hits increased combined with a sales increase, these are hard facts that prove you can do the job.