Part 5 (1/2)

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First, we will ... ...

Table 2.2 Resume Image Suggestion List Resume Image Suggestion List

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Determine Your Marketable Skills

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Your Guerrilla Resume will highlight your most valuable and attractive skills in such a way that employers are more likely to call you. So, what are your most marketable skills? Complete the following 2 exercises: Exercise 1: What do you do well? What do you do better and more easily than other people? Is it the work you're doing now? Something you studied in school? A hobby? Take out a pad of paper and write down your answers, no matter how unrelated they are to work. The goal is to get your creative juices flowing. What do you do better and more easily than other people? Is it the work you're doing now? Something you studied in school? A hobby? Take out a pad of paper and write down your answers, no matter how unrelated they are to work. The goal is to get your creative juices flowing.

Let's take a fict.i.tious job seeker, Sally, and write down what she does well: public speaking, sales, client service, managing projects, solving computer problems, managing others, speaking French.

Exercise 2: What do you enjoy doing? What skills do you most enjoy using on the job or in school right now? What would you do even if you weren't paid? Write your answers down. What skills do you most enjoy using on the job or in school right now? What would you do even if you weren't paid? Write your answers down.

Here are Sally's answers to this second question: public speaking, bicycling, client service, solving computer problems, baking cookies, managing others, speaking French, serving as a Girl Scout leader, hiking, writing.

Now, you'll see that Sally's answers to question 2 produced a different set of skills from question 1. That's okay, but you will notice several skills that appeared in both lists. That's better than okay-that is exactly what we're after!

When you write down a skill that you enjoy doing (question 2), which you have also written down because you do it well (question 1), highlight highlight it in some way. it in some way.

Let's go back and highlight Sally's skills listed in response to question 2 that were also answers to question 1: public speaking, public speaking, bicycling, bicycling, client service, solving computer problems, client service, solving computer problems, baking cookies, managing others, baking cookies, managing others, speaking French, speaking French, serving as a Girl Scout leader, hiking, writing. serving as a Girl Scout leader, hiking, writing.

For Sally, our fict.i.tious example, the skills she does well and and enjoys doing are: public speaking, client service, solving computer problems, and speaking French. enjoys doing are: public speaking, client service, solving computer problems, and speaking French.

Pretty simple, huh? By answering these 2 questions, Sally now knows more about herself than roughly 90 percent of job seekers who don't know what they do well or what they want to do.

Now, complete this exercise for yourself. Write down your answers to questions 1 and 2, then underline those skills found in both lists. These are skills you do well and enjoy doing. You may come up with 3, 4, 7, or more skills.

You're almost done. Now, choose the 2 or 3 skills you think will be most attractive to the hiring authority reading your resume. These are your most marketable skills. most marketable skills. They will form a skeleton around which you build your entire Guerrilla Resume. They will form a skeleton around which you build your entire Guerrilla Resume.

WARNING.

This is the most important step in the process of writing your Guerrilla Resume. Do not go on without completing this exercise. Stop. Do it now. Write now!

Why? Because once you know what your most marketable skills are, you can highlight your most relevant experience, which will help you find the job that's best for you. It all flows in order, like painting your garage-first the prep work, then the painting.

Okay, now we're ready for the second part of this 2-step process.

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