WHAT IS YOUR SELLING POINT? WHY MUST WE GIVE YOU THE JOB?

Times when the employer was the only one to bring out the fit between the job seekers profiles and the position's requirements are long gone. Employment market has become very competitive that job seekers have to study advertised jobs against their own profiles and establish the link in order to use the same in tailoring their resumes, cover letters and even interview predisposition.

It is needless to condition your personality and preparation to gear towards the position being advertised while your resume is geared towards the position that you through you really wanted two years ago. It is quite easy to spot a candidate who has a complete disconnect with the content of their resumes. Very professional resumes have summaries of ones own profile, career track, developed competencies and overview of experience. The order of importance; or style of highlighting competencies should reflect how you want the potential employer to see you or perhaps what you really want to catch the eyes of your prospect employer. In order to redefine and give focus to what your selling point is the following questions should help one set their own minds and review their resumes and cover letters.

What is the tendency of your profession? What is your profession? Many people who change careers find themselves at the challenge of convincing their prospective employers that they have competencies of performing the new tasks; or that in spite of having a mixed profession, they still have abilities to specialize back to one of the professions they have practiced for a shorter period; or that the mix of their background job titles adds value to their potential results delivery in the target specialized profession.

What other skills do you have other than your core skills and competencies? Such would include institutional coordination, project management, strategic or operational planning, people management, structured problem solving, product/service development, change management etc. Has your employment background helped you achieve this? Are they trained skills or acquired skills?

How authoritative or impactive is your present or pervious position? Such aspects include level of discretion, ability to initiate, ability to steer an initiative or lead a project, responsibility for collective performance or delegated collective role or inter group facilitative responsibility

  

How characteristic have your past employers be in terms of market leadership, market share, dynamism, and change and product performance improvement?

What is your level of understanding of your sector of profession? Do you know beyond your responsibility? Examples of relevant knowledge may include Organizational Integration, other departmental roles and activities, organisation's strategic purpose and market position, industry challenges and current developments

 What competencies reflect in your mind set? Result orientation, quality consciousness, due diligence, improvement drive, sustainability conscious, customer focus, business acumen, cost benefit mindset etc.

How does your training connect with your previous and target positions?

Can you prove all these?