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Matching Your Qualifications With Their Needs
Copyright © 2005, Carole Martin
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The number of resumes received by employers continues to be
overwhelming as the job market begins to pick up this year. The
challenge for you, as a job seeker, is to get your cover
letter/resume noticed - to stand out from the crowd. More and
more candidates are using a cover letter/resume that demonstrates
the “match” between the employer’s requirements (Your Needs) and
the skills and experience that they have to offer (My
Qualifications).
An example of this type of cover letter/resume is shown below.
For some candidates this can be a very effective tool.
Your Needs: Marketing experience
My Qualifications:
* 5 plus years as a marketing consultant.
* Significant consumer-oriented technology marketing
in the retail industry.
Your Needs: Product Management experience
My Qualifications:
* Led product marketing efforts for an online store.
* Spearheaded product management efforts for
major retail chain as a product manager.
Your Needs: Analytical abilities
My Qualifications:
* Excellent qualitative and quantitative
marketing analysis with high impact results.
Your Needs: Interpersonal Skills
My Qualifications:
* Leadership qualities with the ability to
lead projects and teams to highly successful outcomes.
* Ability to communicate through presentations to all levels
of management. Strong ability to influence others.
The more technically able you are the more creative you can be
with boxes and grids.
Even if you decide not to use this type of document, this
exercise will help you familiarize yourself with how close a
match you are for the position you are applying for. A few steps
will make it an easy task that can serve you well in the long
run.
Begin by reading the ads/postings carefully. Notice that there
are some of the same words included in every ad for your type of
job. An example would be ads for an Executive Secretary where the
word “confidentiality” appears consistently. If you were applying
for that particular position you would want to include the word
“confidential” in your resume and cover letter and show how you
have used that skill in past jobs. These words are called the
“key factors” or the “key competencies” required to do the job.
(Your Needs) By reading job postings carefully and looking for
the words that are repeated or stand out as being the most
important factors to perform the job you will become familiar
with the company or industry jargon used and what skills are
being sought for the type of jobs you are seeking.
Practice identifying key factors in job postings or ads that are
of interest to you. Go through postings or ads and use a
highlighter to mark words as you read. What are the common words
used in almost every description? What they are looking for? What
are the qualifications listed? How do your skills match up
against their requirements? Make a list of the key words and
requirements to use in your cover letter/resume.
Next, make a template for your new cover letter/resume. On one
side of the template type in “Your Needs.” On the other side type
“My Qualifications.” Use this template to write an individual
document for each job you apply for matching what they are
looking for against what you have to offer. Be sure that your
resume is as close a match as possible to the posting/ad that you
are responding to.
As is the case with any cover letter or resume style it will
depend on your resume reader as to how effective this style will
be. Some resume readers like it because it “cuts to the chase.”
Others don’t like it because it is too simplistic. If you are not
experiencing the results that you were hoping for and need a new
angle to get “your foot in the door” this may be the ticket for
you. Who knows you just might get a surprise with a quick
response? Anything is worth trying in this very competitive
market.
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Writer's Resource Box:
Carole Martin is a celebrated author, trainer, and an interview
coach. Her books, "Interview Fitness Training Workbook" and
"Boost Your Interview IQ" (McGraw Hill) have sold thousands of
copies world-wide. Receive Carole's FREE 9-week job interview
e-course by visiting her web site at:
http://www.interviewcoach.com and
http://www.interviewfitnesstraining.com
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The article on this page is Copyright © 2005, Carole Martin
You are not required to show the creative commons license
notice when you reprint this work.
This work is licensed under a
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Article Marketing Tips:
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