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You may find it difficult to quantify your work in terms of dollars. You may even find it impossible. If so, try to come at it from a different angle.

Write down everything you've done to increase efficiency increase efficiency or or save time. save time. Time is literally money to employers. Perhaps you wrote an employee training manual, or created a way to back up data faster each night, or devised a way to speed up s.h.i.+pping out on the loading dock. Anything and everything is fair game here. Time is literally money to employers. Perhaps you wrote an employee training manual, or created a way to back up data faster each night, or devised a way to speed up s.h.i.+pping out on the loading dock. Anything and everything is fair game here.

The key is to figure out exactly how many hours you saved per week, then a.s.sign a dollar value to those hours. Then annualize that figure to get the highest, most impressive number. This requires you to do one very important thing: you must do the thinking do the thinking for the reader of your resume. It's your responsibility as the author of your resume to connect the dots for the reader. Make it easy for the reader to picture you as an excellent employee without thinking. for the reader of your resume. It's your responsibility as the author of your resume to connect the dots for the reader. Make it easy for the reader to picture you as an excellent employee without thinking.

For example, say you created a process that saves 10 hours a week. How much does your employer pay someone to do what you just automated? If it's $10 an hour, add another 30 percent to cover insurance and other benefits, and you'll get a figure of $13 an hour. Multiply that by 10 hours per week and you've just saved $130 per week, $520 per month, $27,040 per year.

So, you can write this eye-catching sentence in your resume: ”Saved $27,040 annually by automating widget process.”

Now, here's the fun part. When you save $27,000 here and $27,000 there, pretty soon you're talking real money. Include all these money totals in your Guerrilla Resume.

When you fill your Guerrilla Resume with specific achievements that are quantified in dollars, guess what? You turn yourself from just another job seeker, crying ”Please give me a job!” to a walking, talking, blue-chip stock, who says: ”Hire me at $50,000 and I can deliver a 400 percent return on your investment because I've routinely saved $200,000 annually at my prior jobs.”

While ordinary job seekers are crying out, ”Please give me a job!” your resume will be saying, ”Hiring me is like buying money at a discount.” Other job seekers come across as supplicants, begging for work, while you come across as a superhero minus the cape.

Put another way, you will put an immediate halt to the ”apples versus apples” comparison that employers make when considering ordinary job seekers. It's now ”apples versus oranges”-and you're the only orange. You're changing the rules of the game and putting them in your favor-kind of like picking up a Monopoly board and tipping all the money, hotels, and houses into your lap.

Nice, eh? And it all starts when you stop thinking of yourself as an ordinary job seeker and start thinking of yourself as a living, breathing investment.

Here's a final tip on how to uncover the dollar value for good things you've done on the job. It's this: don't be afraid to call up current and former coworkers to ask for help. You may not know how much money your top client brought in last year or what the budget was on the X-14 project you managed, but someone in the accounting or marketing department might. Leave no stone unturned in your search for accomplishments.

Let me reemphasize this critical point: when you do the thinking for the reader and include specific results in your Guerrilla Resume, good things will happen in your job search.

If you do nothing more than use the instructions in this chapter to come up with at least 3 solid, specific achievements for each job you've held, you will immediately improve your resume. You should start getting more calls from employers to interview. And you will have received full value for your purchase of this book.

But this is only the beginning. You're not just going to improve your resume. You're going to create an eye-popping Guerrilla Resume and cover letter that will produce rapid results in your job search in Chapter 5.

GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE.

Social Media and the Guerrilla Job Hunter Dennis Smith

Why is our brand such an important part of our job-searching efforts? Because our personal brand creates a strong, consistent a.s.sociation between us and the perceived value we have to offer an employer.

And, like it or not, our brand precedes us in the interview process. That's right. Think of it this way: long before the wide-eyed hunter focuses his scope on the ma.s.sive profile of the hairy beast, he hears the thumping sounds of the gorilla (Note: Gorilla, not Guerrilla) methodically beating his chest in the jungle. The gorilla-noise (and his reputation) precedes the inevitable meeting.

Similarly, you-like all job seekers-send signals to prospective employers. They precede you-by a jungle mile. However, the difference between the aimless job hunter and the guerrilla job hunter is this: a carefully crafted brand. a carefully crafted brand. It whets the appet.i.te of the potential employer, laying the foundation for a dynamic, chest-thumping interview supported by well-defined facts of goals smashed and lessons learned. It whets the appet.i.te of the potential employer, laying the foundation for a dynamic, chest-thumping interview supported by well-defined facts of goals smashed and lessons learned.

Besides a knock-your-socks-off Guerrilla Resume, Guerrilla Resume, there are few tools as compelling as social media to help the guerrilla job hunter spread the word about his or her carefully crafted brand. Spanning 29 countries and 17,000 Internet users, recent research by Universal McCann found that almost 60 percent of Internet users are members of an online community such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or there are few tools as compelling as social media to help the guerrilla job hunter spread the word about his or her carefully crafted brand. Spanning 29 countries and 17,000 Internet users, recent research by Universal McCann found that almost 60 percent of Internet users are members of an online community such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or WirelessJobs.com. Even more mind-blowing: 78 percent of Internet users read blogs (up from 66 percent in the previous study). No longer confined to the realm of the college set, today's online social networks are an extremely powerful platform to connect with colleagues and industry professionals. As someone once said, ”If you are not online, you don't exist.”

Chances are, then, long before you arrive for a personal interview, your hiring decision makers will look you up online. Will they find you? Will they find you? If so, what will they find? Are you sharing your knowledge in professional forums? Connecting with like-minded professionals who share your pa.s.sions? Establis.h.i.+ng yourself as the resident expert in your profession? Is your resume up to date? Does it match the profiles you highlight in your social networks? Who is in your network? And most importantly, does your online persona really reflect the brand you've been working so hard to create? If so, what will they find? Are you sharing your knowledge in professional forums? Connecting with like-minded professionals who share your pa.s.sions? Establis.h.i.+ng yourself as the resident expert in your profession? Is your resume up to date? Does it match the profiles you highlight in your social networks? Who is in your network? And most importantly, does your online persona really reflect the brand you've been working so hard to create?

A lot of questions-all worth asking. Undoubtedly, this information works together to represent your online digital footprint. More importantly, it contributes to how a potential employer ”sees” you. As a savvy guerrilla job hunter, you understand this, and you can carefully position yourself to be ”findable” online.

Need an easy place to start? Here are 10 social media activities that will help you-even if you are an Internet novice-join the online conversation and begin spreading the word about YOU: Online Networks 1. 1. Look for online networks that share your career focus, volunteer interests, geographical area, professional a.s.sociations, or alma mater. Join them, offer to guest post on their blogs, partic.i.p.ate in their forums, and share your expertise. Look for online networks that share your career focus, volunteer interests, geographical area, professional a.s.sociations, or alma mater. Join them, offer to guest post on their blogs, partic.i.p.ate in their forums, and share your expertise.2. Get a LinkedIn account for your professional network. Then, create a group on LinkedIn focused on your profession (e.g., ”Wireless Jobs” group has 11k+ members). Invite the experts in your profession to join the group. Get a LinkedIn account for your professional network. Then, create a group on LinkedIn focused on your profession (e.g., ”Wireless Jobs” group has 11k+ members). Invite the experts in your profession to join the group.3. Get a Facebook account (smart job hunters use the ma.s.sive demographics of Facebook [100M+] to their benefit). Ditto with Twitter (use it to follow the online conversations about your profession-your company-YOU). Get a Facebook account (smart job hunters use the ma.s.sive demographics of Facebook [100M+] to their benefit). Ditto with Twitter (use it to follow the online conversations about your profession-your company-YOU).4. Check out podcasts and iTunes and listen to thought leaders-not just in your professional arena, but in other areas as well. Check out podcasts and iTunes and listen to thought leaders-not just in your professional arena, but in other areas as well.5. Get a Get a StumbleUpon.com and/or and/or Digg.com account for voting, and a account for voting, and a del.icio.us del.icio.us account for social bookmarking. account for social bookmarking.