Uncover Your Full Value Proposition: More Treasure Than You Know

A recurring theme I see when working with clients, reviewing resumes and interviewing job candidates is that most have an incomplete awareness of the value they have to offer an employer or a client. Usually people focus on their technical skills, meaning task they do – calculate a statistic, manage a workflow process, and evaluate staff. Although these tasks do offer value, they are hardly unique, special or the whole picture of what you have to offer. At it's worst, your discussion of these skills can pigeon hole you into your current industry or career level or illustrate that you skills are outdate or irrelevant. The problem is focusing on WHAT you do.

What is it that everyone is missing? Simply it is the HOW and WHY of what you do. Why do you estimate statistical models? How do you manage your team? How do you develop staff? Why do you choose to work on challenging projects? The answers to questions like these can position you more favorably in any situation from your job search to competing for a new contract. The answers to these questions are your buried treasure. All you need to do is uncover your treasure chest and open it.

I can illustrate the point with a personal example. Most of my career has been involved with the multifamily mortgage finance industry, developing deep expertise in developing sophisticated financial risk models used to forecast the likelihood that a mortgage will default and if it did what would the ultimate loss on the mortgage be to the financial institution. And while there are some people who know more about some aspects of this topic than me, there really aren't that many. I have unique perspective of developing these models for several of the biggest players in the industry.

It would be very tempting and easy for me to list all of the tasks I've done, papers I've written, money I've saved, etc to try to impress an employer or potential client. However, what it misses is everything I did to get to that point. All of the staff I trained and developed to help build the models. How I motivated and guided them through the challenges and late nights. How I constructed teams that evolved over time as the necessary skills changed from designing to developing to implementation. It misses the work I did explaining complex statistical concepts to regulators and auditors. It misses my ability to build trust and confidence in my team and myself. And so on.

Some of these soft skills one might remember, like managing a project or leading a team. But remember, it's more than just WHAT, it's about "WHY" and HOW. Why did work on those projects and how did I succeed?  I love working on complex tasks that require bring together many differ pieces from different disciplines.

And that is one of my value added differentiators regardless of how you work with me. As an Executive and Career coach, I draw on many different disciplines and experiences to help my clients find and develop a strategy for achieving their career and life goals. I draw on multiple disciplines to help illustrate points and ask the questions you need to answer (you can even see this in the blog articles I write).

Why do you enjoy what you do? How does that play out in all aspects of your life? How do you add value? How will you communicate that value?