Make yourself more employable

Well-prepared success stories are a great way to demonstrate the value you can bring to the bottom line for your future employer and help you stand out at interview.

“Employers aren’t only looking for technical expertise, but those who can demonstrate their ability to connect with stakeholders across the business, and make a positive impact on ROI,” says Jason Grundy, Country Manager at Robert Walters. 

Prepare

You’ll want to prepare your success stories well in advance so they come across confident and clear, demonstrating where you’ve shown a range of different and valuable competencies. Ideally, these will be situations where you’ve created ongoing value for the business, either through an improvement in best practice or where a dollar value can be attributed.

Employers aren’t only looking for technical expertise, but those who can demonstrate their ability to connect with stakeholders across the business, and make a positive impact on ROI.

Success stories should incorporate 3 key elements to reinforce your capabilities.

The situation - A time when you’ve brought measurable or ongoing value to your employing organisation.

Your actions - Examples provided should focus on situations affected solely by your actions, rather than the joint results of a team. Your sentences should always start with ‘I’ rather than ‘we’, so that the interviewer has a clear picture of the event and how you personally brought about change. 

The result - Wherever possible, results should always be described in quantifiable terms, quoting specifics and dollar values where you can to reinforce the factual nature of the story.

If the outcomes are less measurable, make sure you're clear on where you added value and how your actions reinforced best practice or created a more positive working environment. 

Examples

Interviewer questions will vary depending on the level of the role, but the key thing will be to anticipate what your interviewer will be looking for. Example success stories could include:

• A time when you managed a supplier who’s critical shipment would arrive late
• A time when you made the decision to upskill in order to help achieve the businesses goals
• A time when you influenced an internal process to make it more cost efficient
   

In order to prepare well beforehand, it is recommended to chat through your examples with your specialist recruiter. It’s likely that they will have a lot of insight into not only who will be interviewing you but what they will be likely to value.

To find out more information on how to make yourself more employable, please contact:

Jason Grundy, Country Manager (Middle East)
jason.grundy@robertwalters.com
+971 4 8180 102