What exactly are career/resume accomplishments and how can you highlight them?
Accomplishments (in context to your management/executive resume, anyway) are simply career successes. In fact, I’ll provide a few examples of professional accomplishments towards the bottom of this article.
We all have them.
You could group 20 managers into a room and learn that all attendees bring different specialties (and achievements) to the interviewing table.
It’s one thing to claim you can do something—it’s another to prove you’ve done it.
Why are resume accomplishments so important?
Detailing professional accomplishments within your resume are advanced strategies for showing potential hiring managers that you’re more than just a “seat warmer,” but someone who knows how to turn challenges into successes. This is the true reason for including accomplishments within your resume. Hiring companies now more than ever want and need professionals who know how to take a sales team and coach its members to improving sales.
Resume core accomplishments primarily focus on several core areas, including these:
- Sales & Revenue Increases
- System & Tool Introductions
- Cost & Overhead Elimination
- Staff Transformations
Here Are a Few Resume Accomplishments Ideas & Examples
First, start by writing some of the most obvious job successes you’ve had with each of your most recent employers to help add pizzaz to your updated resume.
For example, maybe you write something like this:
When I joined Salco in the Fall of 2015, the company was a mess. The company had few systems in place, and at first glance, it seemed like the company had way more employees than it should have. So, upon joining the company, I introduced SAP MM and transformed their company inventory and supply chain logistics. This saved the company a lot of money and cut overall warehouse staff.
Now that you have jotted down these rough notes, now it’s time to take the above and transform it into an accomplishment much more appropriate for your resume.
For example, you might write something similar to this:
Introduced SAP MM to Salco in early 2016, which transformed how the company was tracking inventory and supply chain logistics. Cut inventory tracking time by approx. 13.5%, while reducing 9 WHS personnel (8 FTE/1 PTE). Saved an estimated $1.58M in the 12 months through staff reduction and error elimination.
Not bad, right?
Of course, these big “wins” are easy to remember — though might take a bit of legwork to track down specific numbers. This is easier with a present employer, but nowhere near as easy with positions/companies where you no longer have access to benchmark data.
But, let’s say you don’t have any sizable accomplishments in your career.
One of the best ways to still introduce accomplishments into your resume without direct impact is to highlight what you’ve accomplished as part of a team.
So, a support-based achievement might be:
Worked with the sales team during a merger with Xaneco in 2013, which upgraded sales volumes from $45.3M in 2012 to $67.1M by year-end 2013. Supported the on-boarding and training of 23 additional sales reps in addition to the introduction of Salesforce.
This is when it’s important for you to…
Keep Track of YOUR Job Accomplishments to Highlight & Use Later
Start with the easy stuff:
What has changed over the last year?
New email address?
Then, proceed to more intense resume additions:
Successfully completed new projects?
Overcome challenging business issues?
If you are not convinced it is worth your time to track your achievements, here are some other reasons:
– For performance evaluations or an annual review
– To set your personal and professional goals for the next year
– To track the progress of projects you’re working on
– To support your candidacy and qualifications in a job interview
– To make the case for a raise or promotion
– To remind you of your achievements when you’re having a bad day
– To apply for recognition (awards)
Quantifying your accomplishments also helps you stand out from others who do the work you do—whether you’re using the information for a raise or promotion request, or when seeking a new job opportunity. But accomplishments go beyond the basic job duties and responsibilities.
There are several ways you can collect your accomplishments:
- Online. You can create a Microsoft Word file to document your achievements. In your email program, you can create a folder for accomplishments and send yourself emails to store in that folder. You can also use an app like Evernote.
- When you receive a “kudos” email, forward a copy to your personal email account. To help you organize it, tag or label it with a specific subject line (like “Kudos”).
- You should also print out and/or take a screenshot of any LinkedIn recommendations you have on your profile. These are an important part of your accomplishments record as well.
- Offline. Something as simple as a file folder or notebook can be used to track your achievements.
- Keep performance reviews and highlight what could be added to the resume.
- If you receive notes of appreciation from customers, coworkers, or your company, compile those. You can make a copy and keep it in hard copy form, or take a screen shot and keep a digital copy.
As often as necessary.
For some, it could be frequent updates.
For others, that could mean a quarterly assessment.
The most important thing is to take the time to do this on an ongoing basis. Put an alarm or task reminder on your calendar so you remember to set aside the time to track your accomplishments regularly.
Whether updating your resume yourself or hiring a professional resume writer, if you have your accomplishments collected and orghttps://careerdirectionsllc.com/anized it will make it much easier and should result in a job search document that is ultimately more effective.
Resume Accomplishment Examples For You
Before I close out this article, I have several sample “fill in the blank” accomplishments you can use to identify accomplishments for your resume. Here we go:
- Introduced ___ system, which reduced invoice errors by ___%.
- Cut costs by ___% by doing ___ and ___.
- Increased revenue by $___ after implementing ___.
- Built a recession-proof client portfolio by doing ___.
- Received ___ award for ___.
- Recognized ___% over quota in ___.
- Achieved ___ in annuity donations in just 6 months – first in non-profit history.