As a resume writer and interview coach, I am blessed with wonderful clients that run the gamut from entry level to senior executives. Some have a great handle on how to self-promote; most do not. And surprisingly this isn’t always related to stature, experience, or education.

Business depends on growth, and growth depends on the cumulative impact of each employee’s individual performance. Your performance of a key function absolutely impacts the bottom line. Knowing yourself, your character, strengths, talents, and skills, relating these to your performance, and then demonstrating how your performance influenced your company’s year-end performance report, is an essential aspect of career management that impacts not only the interview, but also your annual review and other business conversations.

Your character, strengths, talents, education and skills—your credentials or value proposition—must be articulated clearly. They must be connected, in your interview conversation, to your employer’s bottom line. In relating stories of how your performance improved a previous employer’s business, you establish yourself as an employee who provides a return on investment. That is, investing in your pay will produce a return through your performance.

So many cannot articulate these workplace stories, and indeed, have no idea of what kind of return they offer. And what of you and your return? Any ideas?

The next blog will launch wholeheartedly into this topic. Until then, I encourage each reader to create a list of five or more aspects of their current or last job, a list of responsibilities or accountabilities that contribute to business growth or sustainability. If you are an administrative assistant, you must be organized and organize others; a network administrator, you must proactively keep the network humming along; a salesperson, you must not only keep existing accounts, but you must add new ones. Challenge yourself to create your list and tune in next month to see how to relate these to bottom line impact!