Why you should hire me

So, just in case the people reading my resume are Googlers, I've decided to write this handy blog post about why you--yes, you--should hire me. I'm not the right person for every job, but I'm definitely the perfect person for some jobs. There are certain qualities that make this so. I'm not talking about the hard-working, can-work-independently-but-still-be-a-team-player stuff that's standard these days (although both of those things are true). The following is a list of things that I am particularly good at, that a lot of other people aren't:

• Approaching a problem from multiple angles. Because I have such a wide breadth of experience, from web design to customer service to marketing (see my resume for more details!), I know that there is, as the saying goes, more than one way to skin a cat. When faced with a problem, I think about all the different solutions I can come up with and then choose the best one for the job.


• Creating tools to serve a specific purpose, using the tools at hand. If I need a tool to track customer interactions and the company doesn't have the resources to invest in a full-blown CRM program I can (and have) create a bare-bones version in Access. (I have expert knowledge in Excel and HTML/CSS as well.)


• Using what I already know to learn what I don't. In Excel, for example, there are a number of things I don't know how to do (it's a big program -- I doubt there's anyone out there who knows all of the things Excel can do). But I know how to do enough things that I can make a pretty educated guess about other things it can do...and to find out how to do those things.


• Finding answers/solving problems. I have an almost obsessive need to know why something anomalous has occurred, and I'm very, very good at quickly digging out the reason. In the past, this has led to catching major software bugs before customers encountered them, discovery of customer fraud, and even finding that something we thought at first glance was a major problem was in fact a simple fix.


• Putting together puzzle pieces of data to show the big picture. I have found that data is often gathered and/or returned in a way that leaves out a critical piece of information for whatever report is needed at the moment. The answer is to combine reports, but this can be tricky from both a technical perspective and also when thinking about data integrity. I know what to look for, what questions to ask, and how to make the proper adjustments to get reliable big picture data.


• The ability to analyze both quantitatively and qualitatively...and to analyze discrepancies between the two results when necessary.


• I speak geek. I have enough of a technical background that when developers explain to me why something can't be done in the budget/timeframe/whatever that I need it, I understand and can often come up with a viable compromise or alternative that makes everyone happy.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of my skills...those that are more concrete can be found on my resume. But I'm guessing if you're Googling me, you've already seen that and want to know a little more about me before you contact me for an interview (or maybe we've already spoken and I've piqued your interest). If the above sounds like the type of person you're looking for in your organization, I'd love to hear from you (laura DOT yona AT gmail DOT com). If not, I hope I've saved us both some time and wish you the best of luck in your search.

posted by Laura Y. @ 7:10 PM