Job Seekers: Articulate Your Value Proposition with PAR's (Problem, Action, Results)

• Forcing you to think about your accomplishments in terms of specific metrics and categories
• Forms the basis for a great resume
• Prepares you for the interview questions
  • Concise, focused answers addressing accomplishments
  • Allows you to demonstrate how you solved a similar problem in the past
• Builds confidence in yourself

Some topics/categories for PAR responses:

•1.         Management, Development, & Leadership

•2.         Finance & Accounting

•3.         Human Resource, Training & Development

•4.         Customer Service

•5.         Sales & Marketing

•6.         Plant, Equipment, Facilities/Maintenance

•7.         Information Technology

•8.         Operations, Production, Safety, Environmental

•9.         Quality

•10.     Research and Development

Begin writing your PAR statement as follows:

• 1. Write down statements without censoring them or editing them during this first phase.
• 2. Go back and examine those statements that are duplicates andstrengthen those that are weak.
• 3. Improve your remaining list statements, utilizing the following guidelines.

Answer questions concerning what you did starting out very simple at first, then adding in the

Problem and Action statements:

            What did you do?                  Managed

            Who?                                      Construction Crew

            How many?                            10

            Where?                                  Field Site

            Results?                                 35% increase in productivity   

Problem: How to manage a field construction crew with discipline and efficiency to complete the job safely and on time.

Action: Evaluated work practices and eliminated duplication by assigning each crew member a specific set of tasks

Result: 35% increase in productivity resulting in completing project 24 days ahead of schedule and on budget.

This PAR can now be condensed down into a statement for the resume as follows:

Managed a construction field crew efficiently by streamlining work practices and assigning individual responsibilities and ownership of specific tasks resulting in a 35% increase in productivity and bringing in the project 24 days early and below budget.

Management, Development, & Leadership

Problem:  Facility was off production schedule by 1,268 pieces per day, clogging up work flow, thus causing customer backlog to be 26.8 days and delaying delivery times and collections.

Action:  Created and developed a planning and scheduling team utilizing supervisors, purchasing, and hourly personnel to research failure points throughout the process. Set-up a daily 15 minute meeting to discuss problem pieces and missing materials and used new reports created by IT to help track the work in process and bottlenecks.

Result:  Within 3 months, the off schedule declined to less than 100 pieces and in 6 months the backlog was reduced to less than 15 days.  These actions increased profits over the 3 months by 14% by shipping 1,100 additional pieces that had failed to ship.

Problem:  Industry and facility were not keeping up with technology. Difficulty in recruiting and retaining high caliber talent due to culture and history.

Action:  Recruited and selected pragmatic and energetic supervisors and established a mentoring program with existing, seasoned supervisors who possessed teaching skills and enjoyed shadowing the new recruits. 

Result:   Developed 8 strong, effective supervisors that were promoted two additional levels within a 4 year period creating an improved culture and empowered workforce within the organization.

Finance & Accounting

Problem:  During the budget process there was a shortage of skilled personnel to plan and forecast the budget for the up coming year. The accounting department had utilized the same template for Capital Expenditures year after year with limited input and no real needs assessment.  There were major machine and facility repairs needed and the owners had been surprised by this discovery two years in a row.

Action:  Initiated a meeting with senior management and explained that during the next budget process we needed accounting to visit the plant and meet with plant management and maintenance and go though a more rigorous process and review.

Result:  The next budget year a review a cross functional team was formed and involved with a review and sign off on by the Division Manager. The repairs and investment in the machinery and facility resulted in an annual efficiency gain of 15% and an improvement of $850,000 to the bottom line.

Problem:  While costing new product there were problems with explaining how the total materials and labor were established.  This was due to engineering being located at the plant and accounting being located at corporate.  The two departments were using different spreadsheets and different labor standards.

Action:  Set-up face to face meetings to establish one spreadsheet, one labor standard and standardized material costing.

Result:  Company now has a standardized cost system. Reduced the time to of costing from 6 weeks to one week saving over $105,000 in labor and benefits per year.  

Human Resource, Training & Development and Diversity

Problem:  Retaining high potential associates for skilled positions.

Action:  Researched and reached out to the Deaf and Hispanic community, utilizing  translators provided by the deaf school and a local Spanish translator.

Result:  The top production associate for the year and the top 3 quality award winners came from this labor pool and initiative.

Customer Service

Problem:  Several communication break downs between customer service and the facilities due to a move of one department from a field location to the corporate office.

Action:  Initiated and set-up weekly plant visits with the Director of customer service to discuss service issues, repairs, returns and the hot list.

Result:  Communication was restored; information lines were set-up that eliminated the off site issues reducing warranty utilization rates from 15.3% to under 5%.

Facility, Equipment and Maintenance

Problem:  The Corporate Safety/Maintenance/Environmental Supervisor was retiring.  Over time the company had combined three areas into one job. 

Action:  Initiated and set-up outside services to handle machine repair and major equipment breakdowns that would normally be handled by this position and his staff.  Then recruited and hired a high potential maintenance talent who had a sincere interest in growing and developing with the company. Cross trained the new talent 8 months with existing and retiring manager.

Result:  The department was reduced by 4 people with the use of an outside vendor saving the company over 2.1 million dollars in a 5 year period. Retiring supervisor elected to work on an hourly part time flexible schedule available for mentoring and trouble shooting as needed.  

Problem:  HVAC units were 20 to 30 years old, breaking down and costing up to $180,000.00 per year in repairs with another $75,000 dollars in excess energy costs.   

Action:  As the company down sized and sold 13 buildings, one structure was to be imploded and torn down. Initiated contact with the new owners and worked out an agreement to purchase and install 11 units that were only 5 to 8 years old.

Result:  Company recognized a $400,000 net gain. Instead of spending $500,000 on new equipment, only $100,000.00 was spent to resolve the issue.

IT

Problem:   Company was working off of 3 different operating systems across the organization.  There were 8 programmers writing programs (patches) to keep the systems running and communicating.

Action:  Created a team that ran the due diligence and recommended going with one operating system. Team worked through the cost justification.

Result:  Discontinued patching the old systems, set-up a plan to purchase a new system within two years and eliminated 4 programmers at a savings of $326,000.00 per year. 

Operations, Quality, Production, Safety, R&D

Problem:  Excessive lost time injuries, and works compensation cases.  In 2004 there were 38 injuries that cost the company $385,000.00.

Action:  Established the STOP program from Dupont. Created cross functional safety teams investigating each accident after it happen, conducted employee safety training classes, set-up monthly plant safety meetings and weekly inspection of work areas.  Initiated departmental safety awards with drawings each week.

Result:   2005 - Reduced to 20 injuries

               2006 - Reduced to 14 injuries

               2007 - Reduced to   9 injuries

This resulted in over $300,000.00 in savings in worker's compensation costs alone.

For more information on how to create and use PAR's along with many other vital tools that will assist in an effective career advancement campaign, go to Bo Burch's web site.