I am 50-[COUGH] years old meaning that I have been working since the 80’s or about 30+ years.  If you are like me, remembering what you had for breakfast is challenging enough as compared to what you were working on years ago.

Job applications and consulting opportunities want to know what we did in the past (but generally not breakfast choices). Although a job application typically focuses on the last 5-10 years, what if you want to demonstrate depth of experience?  Alternatively, what if they are asking for experience, which you have, but it occurred years ago – how do you manage longitudinal information about your career?

Consulting is the Mother of Invention

The above problem was vexing me when I worked for a consulting company.  My employer would bid me on opportunities and thus I had to provide resumes and a skills matrix.  Like most consulting companies, this organization responded to 1-2 such things every week and my skill set was such that I could contribute to about half or more of them. 

The sales folks, often at the last moment, asked the consultants to fill out a skills matrix for a bid.  After doing this a half dozen times, I notice that they were often looking for the same experience and one was nearly-identical to another. Although a skills matrix was for a different client, it had to be filled out as if it was the first time the skill was ever sought after.  Thus, the Experience Database was born!

Experience Database (Ex-db)

In a nutshell, Ex-db maps significant things I have done and matches it to what is required in the job application, etc.  When there is a role I am interested in, I enter the requirements into the Microsoft Access ‘Experience Database’ (Ex-db).  For example, a job may require an accounting designation, experience in implementing change and project management expertise; think of this as the ‘Demand’ part of the equation.

After analyzing and entering the elements of the job, I then map them to a ‘Job Capability’.  This is a standardized map of things we do.  In some cases, it is an one-to-one match, e.g. an accounting designation.  In other cases, the match may be more generic; for example the general capability of “Business Process Re-Engineering”.  This mapping is the broker function.   

Where did the work experience come from? Previously I would have entered my volunteer, work, professional and academic experience into the system and mapped that experience to one or more Job-Capabilities.  For instance, organizational change and process design has been a fixture of my career to date; this is the supply side of the equation.  

Matching Demand to Supply

Through some preexisting queries the result is a report that matches my past experiences to what the job ad or skills matrix is looking for.  The following table is an extract from this report.

Governance & Policy Development

• Governance & Policy Development
  • Program Director, Financial Management Institute – Alberta Chapter
    • Organized the January 27, 2016 FMI Conference: Public Sector Unions, their costs and benefits. Attended by 110+ participants it included representation for federal, provincial and local unions as well from local media and Labour Watch.
• Project Portfolio Management
  • Director, Strategic Technology Planning, Alberta Advanced Education
  • Developed the online business case summary tool. Built on a Microsoft SharePoint, Access, PowerPivot and Excel platform, the tool allows for real time entry and update of budget and project requests. High level integrated reporting is provided.
  • Manage the IT project prioritization process via a coordinate business case tool. This process allows senior leaders to understand funding requests, their outputs and intended results (outcomes) for the department.
  • Secretariat for the ITM Steering Committee. Composed of Assistant Deputy Ministers and other senior leaders. The committee sets budget, strategic direction and project approval for the Department and the Ministry.

Why Bother?

I have to admit that maintaining the database is a bit of work and entering the job application is more work – so the question is why bother? 

Firstly, the above rigour has helped me prepare for roles so that my cover letter or resume is tailored to have the right experience.  Next, the resulting report helps me prepare for the interview and sometimes I have provided a package copy to the interview panel.  In other cases, I abandoned a job but the analysis really showed that I did not have the experience.

If I did apply and got an interview, I could then say: ‘On page 3 you will see that I have had considerable experience in change management, here are some highlights’. 

I have also used the database for other uses:

• Preparing for a yearly review with a current employer,
• Responding to an audit of professional development compliance for my accounting designation. 

Building the Ex-db

The above was an overview of why I developed Ex-db and the problem I was trying to solve with it. The next blog, I Remember When I …, allows you to download and immediately start creating your own Ex-db.