Why Having Great CARS Can Improve Your Job Search

When you are in the hot seat for a new job, employers, hiring managers and recruiters all want to know the same thing—what do you bring to the table and why should they hire you? You can put their concerns at ease and improve their confidence in you by showcasing your quantifiable, high-impact accomplishments; this is the most simple approach to giving companies a snapshot of your unique tangible value.



So take a close look at your professional resume and if it is lacking the WOW factor, you are not doing a great job of marketing yourself. When I get pull back from clients about developing standout achievement statements, I simply introduce them to the CAR strategy, that is Challenge-Action-Results.

When you need to take career achievement from average to outstanding, you need to set the stage for the reader. For example, saying you increased annual sales 25% in the past 12 months sounds impressive, but other questions come to mind like "what was the sales growth prior to your leadership, how much of your actions or activities directly impacted the company’s sales or was the company going through any changes/transitions when you joined?" There is a much greater career story just waiting to be told and the answers to these questions can cast a whole new light on the original achievement statement.

So let's walk through the process for creating attention-getting achievements for professional resume by employing strategic use of this tried and true formula—Challenge-Action-Results.

Step 1: C stands for Challenge

Take the reader through the circumstances that led to the achievement; describe what was going on the industry or company during a specific time period. Indicate whether you were tasked with obtaining specific goals or corporate objectives. A corporate challenge expressed on professional resume may look like one of these



• Tasked with delivering 10% return on $700 million investment portfolio in unpredictable real estate industry

• Charged with reducing installation costs that peaked at 20% higher above industry norm and boosting operational efficiencies by 15%.

• Hand-picked by CEO to increase profitability, improve eroding market share and repair strained customer relationships.


Step 2: A stands for Actions or Action Steps

Your strategy here is to show employers the extent of your leadership capabilities and problem-solving skills; discuss what new initiatives you implemented or innovative methods you employed. The key is not to overwhelm the reader with minor details, but make sure to give a good overview of what steps you took to achieve the desired outcome. Good examples of action step sentences include:

• Recruited, assembled and trained top-performing sales team and utilized word-of-mouth marketing strategy to build client base and generate consistent revenue stream.

• Led transition team and orchestrated all facets of corporate acquisition including financial analysis, revenue projections, valuation and pricing, and bid submission process.

Step 3: R stands for Results

At the end of the day, employers want to know if you were successful and what was the bottom-line impact of your actions? Summarize the highlights and key points of your big win drilled down into one or two sentences. Be sure to write the achievement statement in a format that quantifies your results. The achievement statements below demonstrate how to capture powerful results:

• Executed ardent negotiations and implemented innovative investment strategies that propelled grew investment portfolio from $500,000 to $3 million in just two years.

• Created “first-of-its-kind” technology company that offered complete suite of IT solutions instead of standard, a-la carte services; new revenue model and business strategy increased company's market share 20%.

Professional resumes have to be succinct, concise and be able to pass the 60-second test. Regardless of how remarkable your quantifiable results may be, they lose their impact if placed at the end of a sentence. If we took the same examples used in Step 3 and revised them, they would appear like this:

• Grew investment portfolio from $500,000 to $3 million in two years by executing ardent negotiations and implementing innovative investment strategies.

• Increased market share 20% by creating “first-of-its-kind” technology company to offer complete suite of IT solutions instead of a-la carte services.


Keep in mind that C-A-R stories are critical factors in developing your professional resumes, but are excellent foundation for other career marketing documents and can serve you well in behavioral-style interviews.



By: Abby Locke

Abby M. Locke (premierwriting.com) is a career marketing strategist and leadership brand coach who partners with 6-figure executives and professional MBA women to help them achieve true career mastery and success through cutting-edge, career branded communications, innovative job search campaigns, and proactive career management tools.