Achievements are a critical part of your resume, perhaps more important than responsibilities, and therefore should be given prime resume real estate. Ensure that any achievements that are already listed on your resume are engaging to the reader and actually quantify or qualify what you have achieved. If they are fairly un-inspiring due to how you have presented them, either edit or remove them and update with more exciting and relevant examples. When describing your achievements, remember to think about how your reader is interpreting what you are saying. A couple of well written, relevant examples paint a more positive and engaging picture and far outshine a long list of basic and poorly written achievements.
Consider reading the following statements whilst reflecting on your more recent jobs. Take down notes of situations that come to mind.
- Have you designed or introduced a new process that may have increased efficiency or sales? - Have you solved a difficult problem?
- Have you received any awards?
- What has been your experience with managing or training difficult people?
- Have you mentored or coached colleagues or those external to your business?
- Have you developed a new system, a product, etc?
- Have you designed something?
- Can you think of something you have done for the first time?
- Have you prepared any reports, papers, articles etc that others could not?
- Have you saved your company or department money?
It is worth compiling this information as it happens, get into the habit of documenting your achievements either as they occur or regularly with enough detail that you can recall what you did when it comes to updating your resume. With these examples at hand, it will help enhance your resume and create more compelling stories for the interview. When documenting your achievements, it is important that they are detailed, relevant and engaging to the reader. Below is a weak and strong example of the same achievement.
Weak Example: The introduction of new rebate initiatives, that was successful in saving the company a substantial amount of money.
Strong Example: I successfully negotiated revised annual trading terms by offering lower rebate terms to the company’s key accounts through incentive targets and the introduction of promotional rebates. This initiative generated a cost saving of $700,000 within six months of the change.
To assist in writing your achievements, review our word booster list, found in the ‘Words to Sell Your Skills’ post. These relate to everything from data to people and systems. Using powerful action orientated words will create a positive impression.
5 Comments
Couldn’t agree more. The resume is a sales document.. YOURS. The person reviewing it is the client. You need to think in their shoes (mixed metaphor?) ie “what will appeal to them?” “what’s in it for them?”
The amount of times I review resume’s for Sales people, with no mention of revenue numbers or quota achievement etc… weird
However… the resume won’t get you the job… the role of the resume is to get you the interview to give you more of an opportunity to a) sell yourself and b) find out if the company is right for you!
You can definitely do this the wrong way though. Think about action, and impact. And don’t fill up the page with it. Leave enough to be a teaser and make it interesting, save the rest for the face to face. What I did and what it did (saved$$ or grew business x%) etc….
Great advice! I’m definitely going to use some of the Action Verbs from that link your provided to spice up my resume.
Thanks!
Oh dear.
Resumes should be written neutrally, that is, not in first, second, or third person.
And has anyone ever stated in a resume that they did something “unsuccessfully”?
Totally redundant folks. If you didn’t do a good job of it you wouldn’t be including it in your resume. We get it, we get it. You were great, you were fab. Show us why.
Those action verbs can make you look more than a little silly, and are a dead give away of someone who doesn’t have sufficient writing skills to articulate what they have achieved in the working world without going to the cheat-sheet online. Which is is quite OK a lot of the time, but not if you’re applying for a job that requires excellent analysis or writing skills.
There is a lot of mixed opinion about how to write a resume, keep it neutral, use verbs, don’t and so on which is one of the challenges that job seekers have when writing resumes – everyone tells you different things. Certainly think of your reader and what would engage them, what would make your resume and experience stand out amongst others. I do believe in using powerful language and including verbs to describe your skills and achievements as your resume is a sales tool – you are advertising yourself and your expertise and what you can do for a prospective employer. Ultimately as the resume owner, it is up to you and what you are comfortable with and most importantly what gets you the interviews and the job!