Microbiologist

In this series of posts, I am sharing a variety of real-life examples of people who have changed the way they are perceived--and in some cases, the way they perceive themselves--simply by reframing the way they tell their story.


Installment 3:
This is one of my favorite examples because it shows how the use of tables, combined with a deeper understanding of the distinction between attributes and benefits, helped transform a microbiologist’s mind-numbing 14-page résumé into a powerful selling tool.

Knowing this person came to me in good faith hoping I could help, I did something no sane person would ever do--I read every word of the original résumé. Sadly, the name was about the only thing I could pronounce. Determined to make sense of the résumé, I continued reading and found myself wading through line upon line of Bacillus megaterium amylase, Aspergillus niger neutral amylase, Streptomyces phospholipase A_2, and of course, everybody’s favorite Native and cloned full-length (and truncated) Bacillus naganoensis pullulanase. When I finally got to the last page, I put the résumé down and ran for the nearest picture book. My brain hurt.

I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person, but I felt like I knew a lot less when I finished reading the résumé. I had absolutely no idea what this guy did for a living. For a brief moment, I seriously questioned my ability to help him. Not ready to give up so easily, I did what any thinking coach would do—I prayed for guidance. That’s when I heard myself ask the question:

“What happened at your company that would never have happened if you hadn’t been there?”

Over the course of the next two hours, I heard story after story about the enzymes he created or modified which the company, in turn, mass produced for sale. Some of these enzymes, which required relatively little investment beyond his intellectual capital, were worth millions to the company.

Take a look at the table below and I think you’ll agree that his accomplishments are impressive. Better still, they are understandable in the sense that you don’t need a Ph.D. in microbiology to appreciate what he is capable of achieving.

New Product Development Results

Product	Development Cost	Annual Sales
Pullulanase	$400,000	$4,000,000
Low pH alpha-Amylase	$120,000	$5,000,000
Maltogenic amylase	$60,000	$2,000,000
Baking Amylase	$40,000	$6,000,000**
Total Annual Sales		$17,000,000
*These products perform as well as, or better than, competitors’ products. **Projected as10% initial market share when patents expire.

In addition to the table, we organized the rest of his experience under the headings most relevant to what someone might hire him to do: Strategic Results, Product Support Results, Wet Milling Results, Molecular Biology Results, Protein Purification Results, and Patents & Publications.

For each category, he clearly showed the impact his efforts had on the business. Once we had the résumé trimmed down to a respectable and not-at-all overwhelming four pages, I emailed the file to a Sales Manager at a major pharmaceutical company who agreed to pass it along to the appropriate department. Her reply a few hours later read simply:

“He looks GREAT! Where did you find him?”

Had she seen the original résumé, her eight word reply would probably have been something closer to:

“What am I supposed to do with this?”