Know Your Contributions To The Company

by Dejan Mladenovic | Last Updated: April 30, 2021

For a better personal presentation, it is important to have good examples of your own contributions to the company. As contribution examples, you can use examples about some accomplished tasks in your job and also experiences from everyday life when you helped someone.

Maybe you have been part of some project so you can explain your role and contribution to the project.

Presenting your contributions to the company with examples gives your future employer a better understanding of how you are dealing with different situations and solve the challenges.

How To Present Your Contributions

It is very important to present your contributions with examples and the best way to do it is to follow the STAR technique.

STAR Presentation Technique

STAR technique consists of the following:

• Situation
  • Present what a situation or challenge was.
  • What was a project?
  • Who was the client?
• Task
  • Describe your role in the project.
  • Be specific about what your goal was.
• Action
  • What did you do towards the goal?
  • How did you bring your team closer to that goal?
  • Focus on your contribution and not on the team.
• Result
  • What was the outcome?
  • What did that mean to you and those involved?
  • Backup results with some numbers.

Contribution Template

We have created Job Vacancy Analysis Form as a Word document that you can download and use. There is a section where you can write down your contribution examples in the form side by side with the essential duties and responsibilities that you find in a Job Vacancy.

Get our FREE template Word document for Job Vacancy Analysis.

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Where And When To Present Your Contributions

During the job search process in various stages, you will present your contributions. You will present your contributions in these stages while applying for a job:

• Competencies Cornerstones
• Job Vacancy Analysis
• Writing Elevator Pitch
• First Phone Call
• Writing Cover Letter
• Writing Resume (CV)
• Personal Presentation
• Job Interview

Competencies Cornerstones

Competencies Cornerstones is a professional and personal mapping of your competencies (both formal and real), motivation, values, personal characteristics (attributes) that will turn into strengths and social skills. You can do the mapping separately and then use the results in your job application process or you can combine the mapping with Job Vacancy Analysis (which we recommend) and do a certain matching between the two.

You can see on the infographic how all the cornerstones are organized and you have links to all the cornerstones and Competeneciese Cornerstones mapping itself so please read these articles to get to know more about each of them.

Job Vacancy Analysis

When you find the Job Vacancy worth spending time to apply for you will do a Job Vacancy Analysis. One of the tasks of the analysis is to identify all the personal attributes that the employer is seeking in the right candidate and they are written in the Job Vacancy. Your next step is to match these with your own strengths and social skills.

As you can see on the infographic below as you do Job Vacancy Analysis you will look for  Duties and Responsibilities in advertisements and match them with your strengths and social skills presented as contributions to the company using the STAR presentation method.

Please notice that you are matching data from two worlds one is coming as a result of Job Vacancy Analysis and the second is coming as a result of Competencies Cornerstones mapping that you are doing right now in this article.

Elevator Pitch

Elevator Pitch is structured in the way that there is a strengths presentation part. What a fantastic opportunity to present them so the employer can see the benefit of your strengths for the position that you intend to apply for.

First Phone Call

Calling Job Vacancy Contact person is a valuable source of information especially to clear out which personal characteristics of the right candidate have the highest priority.

Based on your own research and phone call as your source of information you will emphasize which of your own strengths to present first in your Cover Letter and Resume so the employer can see immediately the benefit of hiring you.

Concerning the employer’s values, you either need to look on companies website for vision and mission statement or ask when you are doing the first phone call to the contact person.

Cover Letter

Cover Letter has About me section where you will present your strengths and contributions for the job. You can again decide which presentation technique is more suitable for you either Value Based Communication or the STAR method.

Resume (CV)

The Key Qualifications section of your Resume (CV) is the right location to present your personality at its best using Value Based Communication so do not miss out on that opportunity to shine and stand out from other CVs.

Personal Presentation

Whenever there is a need for personal presentation either during a job interview, introduction round, some event, etc. You should present yourself as a beneficial person that has value so you can slowly build up credibility with the audience.

Job Interview

A classical example of the need to present yourself at its best is during a Job Interview when you are asked to describe yourself.

Helpful Hints For Contribution Ideas

Here are some questions that might help you to get the contribution ideas.

Efficiency Improvements

• Did you…
  • do something that improved the results?
  • do something that gets the company financial benefits?
  • streamline working tasks to be more efficient?
  • propose something that has been accepted by your employer?
  • propose something that has been accepted by your employer?
  • contribute to developing new systems and routines?
  • improve your company’s reputation in any way?

Help Others

• Have you…
  • been able to delight others with something special?
  • helped colleagues to get greater well-being or more efficiency?
  • volunteered or helped others with something?
• Did you help to solve some conflicts?

Promotions

• Have you done something that leads to giving you…
  • more advanced tasks??
  • more responsibilities?
• Did you get more responsibilities in…
  • periods when there were fewer coworkers?
  • the period when your leader was on some kind of leave?

Other

• Have you …
  • volunteered or helped others with something?
  • experienced demand from you for flexibility and agility?
  • done tasks out of your job position?

STAR technique vs Value Based Communication

Value Based Communication is a powerful, quick, and easy presentation technique for presenting the benefit of our strengths to the employer.

However, when you want to present your contributions we believe that the STAR technique has its advantages since it is more detailed presenting the situation first, tasks and roles in the situation, your action plan, and finally result or outcome of your actions that improved the processes.

Characteristics Wishlist

Here we will list some characteristics as ideas for your potential list of your own strengths. Try to present the most important strengths for the applied position as contributions using the STAR presentation method as we have shown you here.

#	Characteristic
1	Analytical
2	Caring
3	Changeable
4	Collaborative
5	Compassion
6	Competitive
7	Curious
8	Creative
9	Direct
10	Effective
11	Energetic
12	Enthusiastic
13	Flexible
14	Focused
15	Good communication skills
16	Good listener
17	Handle stress in the right way
18	Hardworking
19	Has overview
20	Helpful
21	Honest
22	Humorous
23	Independent
24	Initiative
25	Listening
26	Loyal
27	Open
28	Outgoing
29	Patient
30	Positive
31	Practical
32	Precise
33	Quality-oriented
34	Reliable
35	Responsible
36	Result-driven
37	See others needs
38	Social
39	Solution-oriented
40	Strong
41	Strong in the field
42	Strong-willed
43	Structured
44	Team player
45	Thinking out of the box
46	Thorough
47	Tidy
48	Tolerant
49	Willing
50	Willing to learn

Next Step

If you have not yet read Value Based communication as another presentation technique of your personal qualifications that you can find in Job Vacancy so please do so by reading Learn Value Based Communication.

If you have already read this article then just continue with your job application process and below we have a link to our major article Find Job In Norway By Following These Easy 19 Steps where you can find the step applicable for your stage of the job application process.

Good Luck with your Job Search!

Find Job In Norway By Following These Easy 19 Steps

Don’t forget that this article is part of a text serious about finding a job in Norway. Depending on the phase you are in at the moment maybe you can find some articles useful for yourself. So please check them out.

Below you can see the infographic with an overview of all the texts in the series. If you click on the link above you will be sent to the page where all these steps are listed.

Author: Dejan Mladenovic

I moved my family of 3 to Norway in 2008 and created this website so that I can share what I’ve learned with anyone that’s thinking of moving or traveling to Norway. It’s such an awesome place, and I want you to get the most out of it!