HIRED LEARNING: Tom Sieffert – CAR Stories that get you hired

CARs & PARs: Stories that get you hired 
By Marcia Marbury, Copy Editor
Ask Tom Sieffert what led to his recent hiring and he’ll tell you CARs and PARs on his resume.
“When I went in for an interview I could see the HR person had highlighted all of my CAR and PAR stories,” Sieffert explained. They’re “the most important part.”
CAR is short for challenge, action and result, and PAR stands for problem, action and result. Both are stories of success.
Sieffert said he received tips on writing such goal-achieved stories and learned other job-landing info after joining the Professional Service Group of Central New Jersey (PSGCNJ) in Somerville. The engineer became a member of our volunteer organization in January 2009.
After spending more than a year in transition, Sieffert was hired permanently on June 1 as a full-time System Acquisition Staff Action Officer for the New Jersey-based Picatinny Arsenal, which collaborates with civilian companies to manufacture products for the United States Army.
“You’ve got to be something special. Don’t hold back,” Sieffert stated.
The PSGCNJ alum, who served as a moderator, trainer and lead resume and cover letter writing expert on the Training Committee, said he added a unique touch by including recommendation letters and references with his resume when applying for jobs, including positions online. In fact, an HR employee at Picatinny found Sieffert’s resume on Dice.com. She then called him.
After the telephone interview, Sieffert said she told him he had made her day, and scheduled him for an interview with a company he’d worked for three years ago.
The former project and technical product manager wanted to be fully prepared, so he brushed up on his Q&A skills with interviewing experts at PSGCNJ. Sieffert believed the experts’ advice not to push too hard helped him ace the interview.
He got a job offer on the spot. Still, Sieffert sent a different thank you card (from notes he had taken) to each of the four employees who had interviewed him. Within about a week after his initial contact with Picatinny, Sieffert was hired. “I never interviewed with the hiring manager.
I met him on my first day,” Sieffert said.
He added, “If there’s a demand for you and you match up to what they need, it can happen that quickly.”