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Career Accomplishments: The Key To
A Powerful Resume
Nimish Thakkar, MS, MBA,
CCMC, CPRW, SaiCareers.com,
New York
December 19, 2005
Every book -- well,
almost every good book -- on
resume writing or
interview preparation
will advise job seekers to devote a substantial portion of their
resume -- or
interview conversation -- to
career accomplishments.
Career experts couldn’t agree better. As a matter of fact, most
quality-conscious
career professionals will spend hours uncovering
their clients’
job-related results and contributions.
Candidates frequently complain about not having enough to speak about
or about not being able to remember major achievements. Ironically,
these same individuals come up with a fascinating amount of
information (career accomplishments) on detailed questioning. So, I
concluded, there may be mental blocks (presented as excuses) that
prevent individuals from recollecting their contributions at previous
employers. The most common excuses that I have come across are:
Excuse 1: “I don’t want to sound like I am bragging.”
Excuse 2: “I don’t think I did anything great.”
Excuse 3: “I was just doing my job.”
If you don’t brag -- as long as you are being truthful -- on a
resume
or at an
interview, where else are you going to? My favorite response
to concerned candidates is “modesty is not the best policy on a
resume.” The one thing I would agree with, though, is this: you must
showcase your achievements without sounding overly egotistic. How else
are employers going to recognize your value? As far as the other two
excuses go, well, just question yourself further and you will realize
that you did make several contributions at your previous positions
(even though you were just doing your job). Achievements don’t
necessarily have to be multimillion dollar deals. Any action that made
a difference to your previous employers or any result that was better
than your peers’ could be potential
resume material. I realize that I
am being a little vague here, but that is the only way this article
can be useful to readers from diverse backgrounds.
To illustrate the concept of
career accomplishments, I would like to
share an example from my article
Is Your Resume Not Working? Six Tips
To Avoid A Resume Disaster. In the article I speak about two ways in
which a sales professional could describe his duties:
Technique 1: Responsible for selling company’s products to customers.
Technique 2: Personally visited customers and leveraged selling and
presentation skills to generate $14-million increase in sales;
performed at 18% above average and added $5 million to the company’s
bottom line.
The first example is how most
resumes are written, while the latter is
an example of how
resumes could be made more powerful -- by focusing
on achievements and results. The second technique illustrates a
different approach to selling (visited customers personally as opposed
to calling them), highlights the writer’s skills (selling and
presentation skills), lists accomplishments (increased revenues by $14
million), explains how the results were better than peers (18% above
average), and also how he impacted the company’s profits -- clearly a
superior approach.
Your accomplishments don’t have to be like the one described above. An
administrative assistant, for example, may not be closing large deals.
In an administrative assistant’s case, highlights could be the 500
files that were efficiently organized and managed single-handedly
(while still maintaining 100% accuracy), or the 80 phone calls (per
day) that were handled while ensuring 100% customer satisfaction, or
that 100-page manual created, or the reduction in annual purchase
costs by $10,000, or an award or recognition, etc.
Accomplishments are what distinguish a stellar
resume from an ordinary
one. Using the right mix of responsibilities and accomplishments (I
prefer 20:80; that is, 20% responsibilities and 80% achievements) can
transform your resume into a response generating machine.
If you need help remembering your accomplishments, please read:
Simple
Ways To Remember Your Career Accomplishments
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We hope you enjoyed
the following article: "Career Accomplishments: The Key To A
Powerful Resume."
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