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Now let’s analyze the entire statement, piece by piece. Put yourself in Susan’s shoes and answer the questions that follow: 1. Responsible for maintaining Questions to ask yourself: Were you maintaining (i.e. just carrying on in the footsteps of your predecessor) or did you do something different to keep in constant contact with your customers? What did you do specifically? 2. a high level of customer service Questions to ask yourself: How did you know it was a high level? Did your boss tell you? Was there a report? Was it tied to revenue or a percent of increase in sales? Do you have any awards or thank-you letters from customers? 3. to a base of clients Questions to ask yourself: Who were your clients? How many clients did you have? Were they in similar or a wide variety of industries? Did you increase the client base or did it stay stable? If it was stable, how did you contribute to that stability? 4. with sophisticated banking needs Questions to ask yourself: What do you mean by sophisticated? Does it have something to do with variety in the portfolio, the size of the account, or the complexity of the services? Remember, you want to prove that you did the job better overall than the next person because of your actions and the results you achieved. And you can prove it because specific actions and quantifiable results speak for themselves. This is how P-A-R formatting can improve Susan’s original statement:
Old way: Responsible for maintaining a high level of customer service to a base of clients with sophisticated banking needs.