Know Your Worth: Communicate Your Value To A Future Employer
”Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” - Unknown
Although this quote is true that the feeling of self-worth is up to an individual to determine, but so is the reality of how a person communicates his or her worth to a stranger who had never met them before.
How would a stranger know our “worth” in terms of being a great fit for a job?
Yes, I am referring to the resumes and job interviews.
What I see is that the job seekers have hard times communicating the value of their previous experience relevant to a performance in the future job. This is especially evident when professionals avoided (in most cases unknowingly) to track their quantifiable or qualifiable achievements while working for the previous employer. After all, they were so busy meeting deadlines and attending meetings that they lost track of why they did what they did in the first place. And now when that stressful job is gone, they have to look five or even 15 years back and remember about the challenges they really tried to solve. It proves to be difficult to express and communicate our values based on the specific achievements.
But, I digress while speaking about the "business" at work. If you lost the job, all the stress and busy calendar are no longer part of your reality. Now is the time to think of how to show your worth to the next employer in order to stand out from the crowd of stressed job seekers just like you.
One way to demonstrate our worth is by communicating the results of the past work. If you don't like bragging about yourself, then this statement might bring up some negative emotions. How about trying to look at "bragging" about your professional worth from a different angle. Concentrate on the facts. Tell others what challenges you solved, the actions you took to solve these problems, and the results you achieved utilizing your expertise.
When speaking of your past experience either through a resume or during an interview:
Avoid using vague statements such as, “I am an excellent communicator who delivered exceptional results.” Or, "I am an IT professional with a proven track record of success in solving complex problems." Or, "Led a multitude of projects." What do these statements really mean? How does it make you unique and different than the other 200 job applicants?
Be specific by providing examples of how you solved challenges and the results you delivered.
Tell the stories of achievements that backup your clams of "proven" results.
Know your worth but communicate it in a focused and concise way so your next employer can see that YOU are the one who can bring value to the organization and solve challenges. Track the results of your efforts while employed. It will help you in the future to tell a complete stranger how valuable you are to their company based on the results you delivered.
And when this employer still doesn’t see your worth... Well, maybe this is not YOUR employer or YOUR job after all. Maybe your next employer is still waiting to hear your impactful story of achievements.
Do you need help with learning how to build your story of achievements? Contact us for a free 15-minute consultation.
About the Author: Alex Aberle is the President and Founder of XCaliber Coaching & Consulting LLC, a leadership and career development coaching firm. As a Certified Professional and Executive Coach with over 20 years of global experience in leadership and career development, she is on a mission to build a better world of leadership. Alex helps currents and aspiring leaders to calibrate existing skills, expand knowledge, and innovate approaches to effective performance. She worked with the clients employed by Anthem, Inc., The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, YPO, Cisco, BT, Xerox, and others.
