Blog Post: Is Your Career Search Up To PAR?

Many employment specialists agree, when describing your career accomplishments, in a resume or during an interview, that using the acronym PAR can help you to relax, think more clearly, and provide brief, accurate, and detailed information. PAR stands for Problem (or Project), Action, and Results. Some employment specialists use similar acronyms such as SAR (Situation, Action, Results) or STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Results). All of these acronyms are designed to help you think through accomplishments before writing them on your resume or stating them in an interview.

P - First describe the problem that you or the company had. This can also be a project that you were assigned or a situation that you were confronted with.

A - Briefly indicate what action you took to resolve the problem, remedy the situation, or accomplish the project.

R - Try to give measurable results. Use numbers whenever possible such as dollars, percents, or quantities. Numbers may not be available, especially for such skills as building relationships, customer service, team building, and others, but should still be included to show results.

Here are some examples of how PAR can help improve accomplishments.

Resume Accomplishment Statements

Before PAR

• Answered phones.

The before statement lets you know that the person can answer the telephone. 

After PAR

• Answered over 50 telephone calls per day providing information on products and services increasing sales by 32% in first month in position.

The PAR statement lets you know that the person can answer telephone calls, how many calls that they can answer in a specific amount of time, the person has product knowledge, and that they have customer service and sales skills. 

Job Interview Question Responses 

Before PAR

• I had to get the seasonal set completed in one day. My assistant and I plunged into the project right away. We kept getting interrupted by customers and finally had to block off the aisles to keep them from getting in our way. By the end of the first day, we decided that we needed at least three more people to get everything done. We had to rearrange everyones' schedules and call one employee back early from vacation. It took us a day longer than the company said it would but we finally got everything done.

The before response indicates that the person has poor planning skills, does not believe that customer service is important, probably lost sales by blocking off aisles, does not respect employees, and did not complete the project on time. Because the person did not think through their answer to the question, their response is long and drawn out and without much detail. 

After PAR

• I needed to get the seasonal set completed without interrupting customers. I assembled a team of four employees, planned and scheduled the project, completed the seasonal transition in one night, and increased seasonal sales by 5% over last year.

The PAR response indicates that the person has planning and organizational skills and cares about customer service, employees, and increasing sales. Their response is also brief, yet packed with valuable information. 

Try using PAR statements to enhance your accomplishments on your resume. When practicing interview questions, use PAR to think through your answers before saying them out loud. This should help you get your career search up to PAR.