Resume Preparation Determining Your Value to An Employer By Chris Hansen   Getting a job is not as simple as writing a cover letter and resume and sending them in to a waiting employer, who anxiously hires you because your resume is right on the money. Using this exercise in your resume preparation will help you greatly. There are anxious moments on both sides of the hiring table. The applicant who can best think and act in terms of the employer’s needs and interests and who can show that he is the best person to fill the opening will usually get the nod. Here’s a useful exercise to help you be the one who gets hired.   Picture this:       You have been invited to an interview at a company that you would really love to work for. The interviewer is the owner of the company and he is looking for someone who can really help his business succeed. This is not a competition between you and anyone else.       He tells you that he is looking for a person, and maybe more than one person, who is multitalented and asks you to list all of your talents. He says he will give you twenty minutes to list them all on a sheet and that, if you are chosen he will pay you a salary of $5,000 per year for each bona fide talent you list, provided you can prove you have used it to help someone else. Take a blank sheet of lined paper and fold it in three columns vertically At the top of the first column (column A) begin listing your talents. Leave columns B and C blank for now. How many talents can you list?  Hints for column A       Think in terms of physical attributes: sight, sound, taste, touch, smell.       Think in terms of mental attributes: ideas, aptitudes, numbers, words.       Think in terms of knowledges and aptitudes: (not merely IQ)       Think in terms of relationships: organizations, families, memberships   Now for column B. List the person, persons, groups, or organizations who have benefited by the talent you have listed in Column A. If there is not enough room, then write the additional names on the back of the sheet with the number of the talent next to each name.       Former employers, teams, volunteer organizations, charities, etc.   In column C, list the dollarized benefit that you brought to these individuals, groups, or organizations.       What did you help them save, earn, gain, reduce, in time (dollarized), cash, or in kind.             Total Column C       Use these questions to stimulate the process:       State in quantifiable amounts how those strengths contributed to the success of your former employers Has your former work contributed increased sales, reduced operating costs, increased efficiency, improved profit, higher productivity, better/smoother operation, etc.?        List all your “firsts” Were you the first at anything? Did you accomplish something before anyone else?        List all your awards. In business as well as personal life. List any and all awards you can recall.        List all your satisfactions. What are the things that you feel proudest about?        List all the things about which you would boast to anyone.        List all your hobbies.        List your favorite books, magazines        List all the leadership positions you have held        List your strengths as they contributed to your past successes, no matter how small or large.        Write in numerically quantifiable terms (dollarize) how your strengths have benefited others, employers, society, volunteer organizations, etc. (1 hour) When you are finished you will have a list of your talents, who you have helped with them, and how much (approximately) they have gained through your work or assistance.