"CANDIDATE PRESENTATION"

When you present your background and experience to an employer, you want to show how your employment will benefit both the organization and the employer as an individual. You want to demonstrate how you can help improve profits, reduce costs and just make things run better.

We have developed the Feature/Accomplishment/Benefit Presentation--FAB for short--to use in presenting your background and experience to am employer. Features are listed in the left column, accomplishments in the center and benefits in the right column. The FAB presentation does several important things. It shows specifically what you can do for the employer - how you will benefit him or her and the organization. It details what you have accomplished in your current and previous positions. Finally, it highlights your unique features and experiences. How do you prepare a FAB presentation? Let's start by defining some terms:

• FEATURES - Facts about yourself.
• ACCOMPLISHMENTS - Significant measurable results you obtained for your current and past employers.
• BENEFITS - Educated guesses of what you can do for a new employer based on your accomplishments.

Next prepare a chronology of your work history. Make sure you have included all of the positions you have held. Don't forget the promotions! After you have prepared the chronology, list all of your significant accomplishments for each of the positions. Go ahead and list them all. This is not the time to be humble. The accomplishments should be very specific and contain quantitative measures where appropriate.

After your list of features and accomplishments have been completed, study them over. Now identify what you can do for a new employer. How you can benefit him or her? What are the most compelling reasons for a new employer to want to hire you over someone else? Put these answers in the benefits column.

After you have completed your FAB presentation, go over it. Study it carefully. Have you forgotten anything? Where can you include additional quantitative measures? Numbers tell! Can a benefit be rephrased so you will look more attractive to an employer? Is there an accomplishment from early in your career that is particularly significant that should be included?

And finally, when you go to your interview take your FAB sheet with you and be sure to answer questions by relying on your FAB information--especially stressing how you can benefit the new company.

Upon completing your interview, always ask these important questions: "Where do we go from here?"
"What is the next step?" Your interest and enthusiasm about the company and position will influence the

interviewer greatly. It could be the deciding factor between you and the other candidate(s).

Remember there is a tremendous amount of competition out there. Where do you want to position yourself when the smoke clears? Do you want this opportunity? Or, would you like someone else to have it?