The Best Resumes List Achievements
Going Beyond Education & Experience by Highlighting Accomplishments
A resume should be more than just a laundry list of tasks. Be sure to use action words to highlight achievements. Here's how to develop a more memorable resume.
Everyone knows the purpose of a resume is to introduce a candidate to a potential employer by outlining the candidate’s education and experience. This enables the employer to see if a candidate has the background and skills needed for current and future employment opportunities.
However, all a typical resume really does is tell an employer if a candidate has a certain level of education or a specific type of work experience. It doesn’t really express the candidate’s skill sets, individual abilities or level of expertise. And while an interview is really the best way to get to know someone, there is a way to improve a typical resume by introducing more than just the candidate’s education and experience.
Keep in mind that behavioral interviewing techniques, often employed by recruiters, teach that past behaviors predict future performance. Therefore, what a candidate is likely to do best in the future is defined by what he did best in the past.
That’s why it is so important to create a resume that goes beyond stating general education and work experience and instead adds punch through the use of accomplishments. By identifying individual career accomplishments, a candidate illustrates his level of involvement in projects, further explains his expertise and helps a recruiter gain a greater understanding of his true experience.
Here are three steps in defining career accomplishments:
Brainstorming
The purpose of this exercise is to capture on paper a list of work-related accomplishments, no matter how small. This may include anything from winning employee of the month to leading a successful project to creating a company newsletter. Though this list is not exhaustive, career accomplishments may include:
- Cost savings ideas
- Employee development
- Event coordination
- Problem-solving
- Procedure development
- Process improvement
- Special recognition
Impact
Think numbers. In order to give an accomplishment increased significance, what is its numerical impact? Did it increase sales, customer retention, or employee satisfaction? Did it decrease turnover, operational costs, or completion time? Look at how this accomplishment increased or decreased a significant number in the organization. Or perhaps the number is related to the number of people involved, as in coordinating a major conference.
Another part of identifying the significance is looking at the scope of the project and what was involved in order to make it a success. Look at the size of the team, the budget and time frame, as well as the outcome.
Action-Oriented Sentences
One of the most challenging steps in writing a resume is utilizing a unique group of action and descriptive words that highlights the significance of each achievement. But doing so will help create interest and grab the recruiter’s and hiring manager’s attention.
Start by selecting an accomplishment such as “coordinated quarterly sales meeting” then punch it up by adding strong action words and numbers. Now this becomes “Single-handedly organized quarterly sales meeting for 50 sales representatives from around the country by booking airfare and hotel accommodations, and overseeing on-site coordination of conference for three-day event.”
Remember that creating these accomplishments also creates responses to interview questions. Either way, whether they become bullet points on a resume or answers to interview questions, turn boring into daring by pointing out significant contributions through the use of action-oriented detailed accomplishments.
