Communicate Your Value Assessments
Objective: To allow students to understand how to communicate their value. These assessments are based on my book Marketing Your Value: 9 Steps to Navigate Your Career
Directions: This assessment involves three different yet interrelated exercises:
• one word
• value proposition
• success factors
Recognize Your One Word
Describing yourself in one word is one of the most difficult challenges to complete. If you do it correctly, however, it provides the focus you need as you start to learn how to communicate your value in a clear, concise, and compelling manner. The selection of a one-word descriptor is so important to the interview process and one’s ability to communicate his or her value that LinkedIn has launched an annual list of overused LinkedIn profile buzzwords. Here is their latest list released in December 2013 with over 259 million members worldwide as part of their analysis:9
1. Responsible
2. Strategic
3. Creative
4. Effective
5. Patient
6. Expert
7. Organizational
8. Driven
9. Innovative
10. Analytical
While there were similarities around the globe among these top 10 buzzwords, LinkedIn identified some notable outliers such as the word “sustainable” in the Netherlands; “enthusiastic” in Great Britain and “passionate” in Australia and New Zealand.10
Directions: Complete the triangle below using the answers from this section. In the top section, write down 10 words you would use to describe yourself at this moment in your life. From those 10, select the top 5 and write them in the middle section. From those 5, select the one word you would use to describe yourself and write that in the bottom (smallest) section at the tip of the triangle. Remember, this is your one word and you should revise it throughout your life.
Additional exercise: Ask 10 people to describe you in one word and compare their word against yours. Did most people have a similar word that you selected? If not, why do you think that is? If they are choosing a word that closely resembles the one word you choose, then please recognize that you are positioning yourself well in the minds of others. This is an important realization as you move forward and market your value and navigate your career.
Value Proposition Exercise
Now that you have completed the one-word exercise, you need to create a value proposition. A value proposition is a statement of seven words or less that help make you stand out from the competition. You can use your value proposition, or some variation of it, to answer any number of questions during an interview or networking event. Examples include: “How would you describe yourself in a minute or less?” “What is your greatest strength?” “Why should we hire you?” A clear, concise, and compelling value proposition contains the following design elements:
• It highlights your ability to focus: A value proposition is seven words or less because it forces you to focus on the quality of your words, not quantity. It is impolite to ramble on for more than a few minutes when answering an interview question. During an interview, it is imperative to focus on what is most important and that is engaging in a conversation.
• It demonstrates preparation: A well-defined value proposition illustrates that you have given it some thought. The last thing you want to do is stumble on such an important question during an interview or networking event.
• It allows you to tell a story: A compelling statement should help spark a conversation where you can then discuss how one or more of your experiences support the words you have chosen for your value proposition.
Examples of value propositions (each seven words or less):
• Using keen insight to help customers
• Relying on resiliency to transform businesses
• Inspiring people to pursue vibrant career paths
• Focused on collaboration and leadership development
• Achieving progress through passion and team work
• Global marketer dedicated to new ideas and insights
• Helping others develop a passion for affordable wine
• Driving innovative product design through enthusiasm
• Experienced senior executive focused on results
• Building relationships through empathy and concern
• An energy provider who gets things done
• Developing human capital to move organizations forward
• Growing profits by increasing effectiveness and efficiency
• Creating compelling brands across different industries
• Action-orientated professional driven to succeed
Step 1. Write down at least five value proposition statements you would use to describe yourself.
Step 2. Share your ideas with others and ask them if they believe any one of those statements best describes you. If you get a consensus, you might want to use the one people agree upon. If not, you may need to draft a few more statements and rethink your word choice. This is a difficult exercise for many people since they stress over selecting the best words. The best thing to do is use your value proposition for a while and see how people react to it. Remember you can always change it.
Step 3. What value proposition did you decide to use?
Success Factors Exercise
Now that you have your one-word descriptor and seven-word value proposition, you can turn your attention to identifying your success factors. With recruiters and hiring managers inundated on a daily basis with hundreds or thousands of applicants submitting their materials, they often resort to skimming résumés. They simply lack any amount of adequate time to read each résumé word-for-word. One study suggested that recruiters and hiring managers glace at your résumé for 6 seconds. Other research studies indicate that hiring managers and recruiters may spend between 30 seconds up to 2 minutes reading your résumé. Whether it’s 6 seconds or 2 minutes, “that’s hardly any time to impress someone who could determine your employment future.”11 If you are unable to keep their attention, they will most likely toss your résumé aside. Let’s review that last sentence. The operative phrase is “if you are unable to keep their attention.” Please understand that while you may have spent hours crafting your résumé, it may still lack the compelling material a recruiter or hiring manager needs at that point in time. To help you grab someone’s attention while they are reading your résumé, you may want to consider placing three to five success factors at the top of your first page.
Placing three to five success factors at the top of the first page of your résumé allows you to effectively market your value within seconds. “Research suggests that content elements that propel employers to immediately discard résumés include a focus on duties instead of accomplishments, while documented achievements were highly ranked among content elements that employers look for.”12 Since successful factors focus on accomplishments, you are practicing the trait of differentiating your value from that of other candidates. By focusing on your accomplishments, you grab the reader’s attention. Your success factors help them understand why they should call you for an interview. Success factors indirectly answer one or more of the following questions:
• What special things did this candidate do in their past that sets them apart from others?
• How well did you do your previous job?
• What specific results did you achieve in your current position?
• What were the problems or challenges that you or the organization faced and how did you overcome the problems?
• How did the company benefit from your performance?
• How did you leave your employers better off than before you worked for them?
• How have you helped your employers to:
○ Make money
○ Save money
○ Save time
○ Make work easier and more efficient
○ Solve a specific problem
○ Be more competitive
○ Build relationships
○ Expand the business
○ Attract new customers
○ Retain existing customers
Examples of Success Factors
• Managed and collaborated with writers, photographers, and editors to produce the campus section of the Anchor, Hope’s student-managed newspaper, ensuring well-written, carefully researched, and edited news stories.
• Wrote stories that involved interviews, online research, and event coverage.
• Designed compelling layouts using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop.
• Worked as data analyst for a Fortune 100 company.
• Obtained a career center graduate assistantship at Grand Valley State University.
• Gained advising skills on three different levels: a private baccalaureate institution, a master’s degree granting institution, and a level 1 research institution.
• Launched major plank of strategic plan.
• Oversaw a budget of 2 million dollars and led a staff of 15.
• Presented at Michigan Career Personnel Association’s (MCPA) Annual Conference, 2013.
• Managed a variety of situations in nonprofit and for-profit environments.
• Successfully increased sales by 17 percent for a product line within a 24-month period.
Directions: Write down at least three but no more than five success factors. You will eventually place these at the top of your résumé. For now, be sure to write down a few sentences that explain your evidence supporting each one of your success factors. You can then mention those during an interview or networking event.