On the sixteenth entry of Tristan's Tips, our special guest Tristan Layfield emphasizes the importance of knowing your worth and how you can keep track of it. He offers a couple suggestions that could help, namely career journaling and a personalized document.




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TRANSCRIPT

Tristan: What's going on, y'all? It's Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting, and I've teamed up with Living Corporate to bring you all a weekly career tip. Today, let's talk about the importance of knowing your worth and how you can keep track of it. "What's your career story?" This is a question I ask quite a bit in calls with my clients, and initially most of them struggle with it. Many of them will pose the question, "Well, who cares about career stories?" The answer is you. Well, at least it should be. These stories form the core of many of our interview responses and can come in handy when you update or tailor your resume, write a cover letter, or even while networking, but if you don't keep a record of what you've done and don't adequately reflect on that, you'll find out how the experiences you think you'll never forget can easily be forgotten. In today's world, we can't afford that. We have to be our own biggest advocates within our career, and we can't do it if too many pieces of the puzzle are missing. Often times many of us go into negotiations or requesting a raise from our boss, but we haven't taken the time to build a solid case as to why we are worth the amount of money we're requesting. That's not usually due to the fact that we don't have the background that warrants it, but it's typically because many of us don't keep track of the things we've done or accomplished throughout our careers. So here are two suggestions that will help to mitigate this. Hopefully one of them works for you. The first is career journaling. Essentially, it's very similar to regular journaling except you write down names, dates, and significant experiences or achievements from your career. You can highlight things like the amount of money you saved the company, being promoted to manage a team, or any metrics or accomplishment-based things that may be important within your industry. The second thing is simply creating a Google, Dropbox, or iCloud folder and throwing any awards, certificates, certifications or positive feedback in there. You know, create a document in there where you list your accomplishments and career highlights. Save relevant information or documents from projects you were on. Really put anything in there that will help you remember how amazing you are at what you do. There are so many instances where it's important that you know what you've done in order to get further. Resume updates, annual reviews, salary increase requests, interviews, offer negotiations, and that's just to name a few. In each of those areas, it is necessary to have a record of everything that you can review and utilize in developing a compelling career story to make your case. This tip was brought to you by Tristan of Layfield Resume Consulting. Check us out on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @LayfieldResume, or connect with me, Tristan Layfield, on LinkedIn.