For Job-Hunting Success: Track and Leverage Your Accomplishments
by Katharine Hansen
Note: This article is a preview of a chapter from the book,
Words
to Get Hired By: The Jobseeker’s Quintessential Lexicon of
Powerful Words and Phrases for Resumes and Cover Letters, the
first e-book published by Quintessential
Careers Press.
Has this ever happened to you? You've been instructed to list your
career accomplishments, and you can't think of any. Or you're asked
in a job interview, "What accomplishments are you most proud
of?" -- and you freeze up. You know you have had accomplishments,
but you just can't dredge them up.
The inability to come up with accomplishments happens to lots of
jobseekers. We know because we ask our resume and cover-letter clients
to list accomplishments as part of the process of preparing their
job-search documents. Although we stress that accomplishments are
far more important than duties and responsibilities, a surprising
number of clients are unable to articulate beyond the day-to-day
tasks they performed in their jobs.
Accomplishments are the points that really help sell you to an
employer -- much more so than everyday job duties, and you can leverage
your accomplishments for job-search success at all stages of the
process: resume, cover letter, interview, and more. Career counselor
Michelle Watson notes that "employers are seeking success stories."
In the Q&A
interview she did with Quintessential Careers, Watson observed
that "resumes are now focusing not only on 'regular' job descriptions,
but also include concrete, measurable accomplishments. Physical
portfolios, long thought of as tools for artists, will become commonplace
as candidates strive to show their talents, not just talk about
them."
Echoing that sentiment, resume writer JoAnn Nix recently gave this
advice in an interview on the Guru.com Web site: "A resume
should be accomplishment-oriented, not responsibility-driven. The
biggest mistake that I see in the resumes people send me is that
they list responsibilities. That doesn't grab anybody's attention.
People aren't interested in your responsibilities. They already
know the general responsibilities of a position so they don't want
to know what you do from day to day. They want to know that you're
a mover and a shaker: How you contribute to the organization, how
you show initiative, that you can be a key player. That's what they
want to see."
And if you don't believe resume writers and career counselors,
take it from a hiring manager. On the HR.com Web site, KPMG Principal
Mary Anne Davidson recently observed, "Candidates write about
what their positions entailed and not what they actually did. So
they tell us their job was to do XYZ. I know what controllers do.
I know what recruiters do. I need to know what accomplishments you
made in your role. This makes you different than another candidate.
"In less than two sentences," Davidson continues, "I
want to know the scope of your responsibilities, size of budget,
geographic territory, number of team members you led or were a part
of, product lines, and reporting relationship relevant to each of
your roles in the last eight years."
To a great extent, if a job activity cannot be portrayed as an
accomplishment, it may not be worthy of mention in your resume,
cover letter, or in an interview.
OK. You're convinced. An awareness of the importance of accomplishments
does no good, however, if you haven't been keeping track of all
your wonderful achievements. So, Lesson One: The minute you start
a new job, start keeping track of your accomplishments. Keep a log
in a little notebook, or on index cards, in a computer database,
on a little tape recorder, or on your palm device.
But what about all the jobs that have gone by in which you haven't
recorded your accomplishments? Lesson Two: Use the following prompts
to brainstorm all those terrific things you did. Try to list some
accomplishments that set you apart from other job candidates.
- In each job, what special things did you do to set yourself
apart? How did you do the job better than anyone else did or than
anyone else could have done?
- What did you do to make each job your own?
- How did you take the initiative? How did you go above and beyond
what was asked of you in your job description?
- What special things did you do to impress your boss so that
you might be promoted?
- And were you promoted? Rapid and/or frequent promotions can
be especially noteworthy.
- How did you leave your employers better off than before you
worked for them?
- Did you win any awards, such as Employee of the Month honors?
- What are you most proud of in each job?
- Is there material you can use from your annual performance reviews?
Did you consistently receive high ratings? Any glowing quotes
you can use from former employers?
- Have you received any complimentary memos or letters from employers
or customers?
- What tangible evidence do you have of accomplishments -- publications
you've produced, products you've developed, software applications
you've written?
- Think of the "PEP Formula," Profitability, Efficiency,
and Productivity. How did you contribute to profitability, such
as through sales increase percentages? How did you contribute
to efficiency, such as through cost reduction percentages? How
did you contribute to productivity, such as through successfully
motivating your team? Read
more about the PEP Formula and see samples.
- Quantify. Employers love numbers. Examples:
- Increased sales by 50 percent over the previous year.
- Produced total meal sales 20 percent higher than those of
the other servers in the restaurant.
- Supervised staff of 25.
- Served a customer base of 150, the largest on firm's customer-service
team.
- Use superlatives. As Donald Asher notes in his excellent resume
reference for college students, From
College to Career, you can impress employers with words
such as "first," "only," "best,"
"most," and "highest." See more examples in
our Cover
Letter Tutorial.
- Use the SAR or PAR technique, in which you describe a Situation
or Problem that existed in a given job, tell what Action you took
to fix the Situation or Problem, and what the Result was. Some
experts call this the CAR technique, in which C stands for Challenge,
or the STAR technique, in which the T stands for Task. Resume
writer JoAnn Nix notes that a sales and marketing manager could
employ SAR/STAR/PAR/CAR technique this way: "Joined organization
to spearhead sales and marketing initiative for newly developed
territory. Led the aggressive turnaround of a poorly performing
district and propelled sales from one to six million in 14 months."
See more about this technique:
Susan Britton Whitcomb, author of Resume
Magic, one of the most highly recommended resume books
on the market, calls accomplishments "the linchpin of a great
resume." Her chapter on accomplishments is one of the best
sources for getting your accomplishments juices flowing. Here are
some of her suggestions:
- Adding nuances to the Efficiency component of the PEP Formula,
Whitcomb suggests listing ways you saved time or made work easier.
- How did you make your company more competitive?
- How did you build relationships or image with internal or external
constituencies?
- How did you attract new customers or retain existing ones?
- How did you expand the business?
- How did you contribute to the firm's Return on Investment (ROI)?
- How did you help the organization fulfill its mission statement?
- And if you're really stuck in the accomplishments-listing game,
you will likely find Whitcomb's Resume Magic valuable for the
"Impact-Mining Questions" she offers for numerous specific
career fields.
What if you're a college student with little or no job experience
from which to cull accomplishments? Don't miss this page of our
Cover
Letter Tutorial, which offers lots of ideas for making the most
of your college accomplishments.
Finally, a word of caution: Resist the temptation to blow your
accomplishments out of proportion. Accomplishments should be measurable
whenever possible and always verifiable. Don't risk having a prospective
employer call a former supervisor and ask, "Did she really
save the company from bankruptcy?" and have your ex-boss say,
"Huh?"
Need help brainstorming your accomplishments?
Use our Accomplishments
Worksheet.
Copyright by Quintessential Careers. The original article can be
found at: http://www.quintcareers.com/job-hunting_success.html.
Reprinted with permission.
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