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Show Me the Money…or How You Will Make Me Money[By Mary Waldron]

This week, I spoke with Rick Gillis, who, over a short number of years, has developed quite an impressive career as an

employment expert, public speaker, author, and radio show host. As founder of The Really Useful Job Company, Gillis has

built the formula of fundamentals that will get job candidates hired.

Gillis’ “guerilla job search tactics” and their

simple yet direct and powerful message

pinpoint methods for getting hired that not

even the most prestigious students and

professionals remember to acknowledge.

Having practically stumbled into the world

of hiring and its technology after a �0-year

career in real estate, Gillis had the sales

skills and the enthusiastic personality to get

the ball rolling in his journey.

Because he held a position at

Houstonhiring.com when the Internet was

first launched, Gillis was encouraged to

start speaking to various offices for the

Texas Employment Commission in �998; and

that was where it all started. Last August,

he was offered-and accepted-a weekly,

two-hour radio show called “Employment

Radio with Rick Gillis,” on which he speaks

with the “smartest guests on radio,” such

as Good Morning America Workforce

Contributor Tory Johnson and President and

CEO of the American Staffing Association in

Washington, DC, Richard Wahlquist.

Today, after years of networking and learning

from a plethora of human resource and

hiring managers, staffing companies, and

“titans in the industry,” as well as feeding

his constant hunger to learn from other

employment experts, Gillis has created his

own route for getting hired fast.

“Show me, as an employer, how you are

going to make me money or save me

money” is the underlying theme of Gillis’

presentations and recent book, REALLY

Useful Job Search Tactics. No matter

how old job applicants are or how much

experience they have, this is the contingency

that they will get hired upon. Many job

seekers tend to forget that companies want

to be profitable-and that means hiring people

who can aggressively make them profitable,

period.

In today’s cutthroat business world, young

people are beginning to replace older

employees in their jobs because they will

work for less money. It is essential for

professionals to understand that they always

need to be exercising and justifying their

existences in particular jobs because there

will always be young people who will come in

and do them for less money.

“I don’t want young people who are 23 to 26

years old today to have to listen to someone

like me when they are 50 years old because

they did not internalize and lost sight of the

fact they weren’t making somebody money,”

said Gillis. Making and saving money

can also translate as adding value to an

organization and saving time.

According to Gillis, the resume, cover letter,

and interview must tactfully communicate

how someone is going to add value to the

company and increase profitability-no

matter what industry the candidate is in.

Gillis stresses the importance of “making

yourself, your resume, and your interview so

compelling that your recruiter will be afraid

to let you leave the office for fear that you

will end up with the competition!”

Most resumes are “nothing more than

obituaries,” Gillis commented. “All resumes

speak to the past, but how does that express

to somebody that you’re going to make or

save them money? You have to speak to the

future.”

There are two components that Gillis

always stresses when advising job seekers

about how to prepare dynamic resumes.

Underneath the contact information at the

top of a resume should be a brief “seeking

statement” that simply states the exact

position that the candidate is in search of. If

you clearly highlight the type of position you

are looking for, the person looking over your

resume will know who to forward it to.

“Don’t give me all of the fluff saying, ‘I

am a talented, skilled individual seeking

challenging….’ No, that doesn’t work

anymore,” he said. A good, clean example of

a seeking statement would be “I am seeking

a position as a first-year associate at your

firm.”

Gillis also suggests an objective statement,

which should come after the seeking

statement and should speak to the future, as

well. It should target, in a sentence or two

at most, what you can bring to the company

and its value. Concisely specifying what you

can bring to the mix and what benefits the

employer will reap will excite and encourage

the employer to continue reading your

resume, which will ultimately persuade him

or her to call you in for an interview. “You

will be compelling and memorable when you

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speak to their needs and not what you want,”

Gillis said.

Following the seeking and objective

statements with supporting

accomplishments will tie up the package.

When discussing achievements in a resume

or cover letter, it is crucial to make those

words jump off the page by including

numbers and percentages. One might say,

for example, “I was responsible for 49% of

all annual sales for one company one year,

resulting in a net bottom line of $850,000.”

When employers see something like that, the

details they really see are the percentage

symbol, the dollar sign, and the numbers.

Tactfully, and a little slyly, leaving out the

company name and the year of the action

can prevent-or, rather, delay-the employer’s

knowledge of one’s age and experience. This

will entice the employer to make the phone

call to ask, “How did you do that, and where

did you do that?” Then, the job seeker and

the employer can have a dialogue.

Creating a worksheet of your top �0

achievements, no matter where or when they

occurred, and using the top three or so in

your resume will, again, entice the employer

to inquire further about your professional

successes. Gillis recommends including

the heading “Selected Accomplishments”

above your list of achievements. This

lets the employer know that the few

accomplishments listed were taken

from a larger reserve. In an interview,

when an employer asks about additional

accomplishments, you’ll be prepared with

those remaining seven accomplishments to

fire away with.

Gillis also suggests keeping a work journal

of daily job accomplishments and tasks

that can later add value and depth to your

resume and cover letter. Perhaps, one day,

another department is having a struggle,

and you drop what you are doing and devote

six hours to helping them get back on track.

As a result, you end up going in on Saturday

to finish your own work and get prepared

for Monday morning. You can draw from

experiences like this when preparing your

supporting details for a resume and cover

letter or when going over your performance

review for a current job. These kinds of

instances make you more sellable to a

company…and more profitable in their eyes.

“Too many of us-I think all of us-go above

and beyond. That’s very valuable stuff,”

Gillis said. A company’s employees are like

“line items in this year’s budget; and if they

don’t make money or save money or justify

their existence, they will not be line items in

next year’s budget.”

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