| We hear stories all the time of candidates memorizing | | | | process was tedious, employees had to work |
| every line of their resume, talking to themselves and | | | | overtime to enter the data for each card before the |
| rehearsing in preparation of the interview for job. | | | | bi-weekly cut off date. |
| Though these methods are good, you need a | | | | Action |
| spontaneous and smarter method to come up with | | | | "With approval from my superiors, I sat down with our |
| answers quickly. There is another easy way and you | | | | local IT department and developed a more flexible |
| can basically index your memory. This method is called | | | | programme with advance features that can |
| S.P.A.R.S it is actually a neat formula where each letter | | | | accommodate all possible variation of payroll inputs |
| has a significant meaning as indicated below. Can you | | | | and perform complex calculations." |
| remember S.P.A.R.S? Sure you can. Situation, Problem, | | | | Result |
| Action, Results, Sell. | | | | It was tested on dummy terminals and put into |
| Let's drill down with a typical example and put this | | | | production so at the end of the work week |
| formula into play. Your resume indicated that in your | | | | employees can log in computer terminals and do their |
| current job that you were able to save 200K for | | | | time sheet. The process takes less than a minute and |
| Company X This information caught the attention of | | | | it was a huge success. From then on there was no |
| Mr. Smith the interviewer and he asks, "How were you | | | | need for employees to work extra hours, the overtime |
| able to save 200K for Company X?" Here is how you | | | | was eliminated and the company was able to save |
| would execute the S.P.A.R.S formula starting with the | | | | the 200k of extra cost. |
| letter S and ending with the letter S also. | | | | Sell Sell Sell |
| Situation | | | | "My research of your company (Company Y) shows |
| "Certainly Mr Smith, my department at Company X | | | | you have numerous payroll departments across the |
| were incurring overtime cost of over 200K per year | | | | country with similar issues, I would like to make this my |
| and this was because the software tool that was | | | | first task to review your payroll processes with your |
| used to compute employee salaries and wages was | | | | department heads and see if transferring this |
| outdated." | | | | knowledge can save you money or time. " |
| Problem | | | | Isn't this the neatest method you have seen? Imagine |
| "This software was limited in features and could not | | | | what you can do with this interview for job formula. |
| handle complex calculations and variations of hourly | | | | You can used it to come up with all the successes |
| wages. The only way to track the hourly wages was | | | | you have had with current or previous jobs and create |
| to extract the hours worked from a stamped time | | | | many S.P.A.R.S stories to tell on your next interview. |
| card and manually entered it into a spreadsheet. | | | | This is by far the easiest method to remember |
| Company X had over 10,000 employees and the | | | | anything. |