Power Statements: Using The Right Words-And Figures–For Real Impact

June 27, 2008 on 11:26 am | In Resume | No Comments

What feelings do you have when you see a prospective employer going through your resume? Perhaps you’ll have thoughts like “I hope he sees my good points” or “She really should see the things I’ve accomplished in my previous work” or even “Why isn’t he checking my last page?” For many jobseekers, what’s in his or her resume plays a very large part in convincing the prospective employer to either hire or not hire him or her.One of the best ways to make your resume more appealing-and more convincing-to prospective employers is by using a Power Statement. Power Statements are taglines that are rich in words or phrases that make a very strong statement to the employer about an applicant’s suitability for the job. Like keyword results that spring up from an online search engine, a well-crafted Power Statement utilizes strong words that make an impact on the employer when read.

For instance, if you’re applying for a managerial position, which of the two statements do you think has more impact? This…

Did general managerial responsibilities such as making reports, helped improve sales and sales networking, and coordinating department matters

Or this?

In 6 months, increased department efficiency by 60% and product sales by 50%, resulting in additional US$2.5 million in profit and heightened consumer interest for nearly one calendar year

It’s pretty obvious that your attention would be riveted to the second statement, simply because not only does the statement show that the applicant accomplished much, but also how he or she accomplished that much. Notice also how simple figures such as “60%” and “$2.5 million” help make such an impact.

Here are more examples of great Power Statements:

Created an employeee retention strategy that decreased employee attrition rate from 70% to 38% and reducing costly training seminars from three times a month to just once a month.

Helped generate an additional $45,000 - 75,000 worth of sales every month for the first two quarters of the year through streamlined product networking and aggressive direct customer selling.

Implemented monthly team meetings that helped target emerging urban markets which made the company recruit 100 more direct sellers and 60 more commercial distributors.

Increased the company’s Web presence by updating the corporate website, which in turn generated as much as 1,200 visits daily in a three-month-period.

Reorganized the entire department to become more cost-efficient, resulting in a 50% decrease in company expenses and increasing the annual advertising budget by 40%.

Are you ready to make your own Power Statement? Here are some helpful tips to get you started:

Always put in figures and numbers - Figures and numbers are powerful ways to convey good impressions. They are more direct and straight-to-the-point, immediately quantifying your quality. Yes, in this case, quantity is a sign of quality!

Use action words - These include words like increased, resulted in, implemented, organized, supervised, developed, devised, directed, achieved, etc. These kinds of words create a particularly positive mood and are the familiar words one would expect from success-oriented people.

Keep it to one statement - Avoid using two or more sentences when describing one particular job or job accomplishment. As a rule: one sentence alone should encapsulate your statement. However, you can use different Power Statements in describing different jobs, though.

Position it in the first page - As much as possible, your Power Statement/s should be already on the first page of the resume. The general rule is, the more important information should be in the less page, with other information of lesser value on the succeeding pages. That’s because the potential interest level of an employer is at its highest when he or she is reading the first page.

Limit the number of statements - If you’ve been working for 20 years already and have had more than 8 jobs, you really don’t need to mention all those jobs you’ve had and make statements about each one. The rule is, the less the clutter, the better.

Avoid exaggerating - You’re point is to impress the employer, but try not to make a mountain out of a molehill when describing your past achievements. For instance, you can say that you helped your previous company by increasing employee efficiency, but don’t say that because of you alone, the company became more efficient.