Identifying your achievements

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

I thought I'd talk about something I've had trouble with, listing achievements or accomplishments on my resume. The problem I have is, what have I done that is good enough to be considered an achievement? For those of you that have trouble when it comes to achievements on your resume, today I thought I'd share my thoughts, as well what others recommend, so you can identify and list your achievements with ease.

Purpose of achievements

Achievements set you apart from other people and show the sort of impact you've had in your previous jobs. Everyone who does the same job as you will have similar responsibilities. It's the areas that you excelled, went beyond what was required, or where you achieved a great outcome that make you stand out.

Good achievements are often measurable, something that shows the impact, the growth or the improvement that resulted from your actions. For example, Reduced customer wait times by 20%. Or, designed and implemented a new customer contact procedure that resulted in improved customer relationships.

Identifying achievements

To identify achievements of your own, think back to the things you've done in your current or previous jobs. Write down everything you think of, no matter how small. These things may be projects you were involved in, tasks you've completed well, or anything else you've done where you were proud of the end result.

To further help you narrow down your list, think about the following questions that come from a discussion on the Ask a Manager blog.

• What did you accomplish in this task that others may not have?
• Did you improve anything, or create a better outcome for your employer?
• What do you think made you great at your job, or what would your boss or co-workers have said?

After thinking about these situations and questions you'll have a list of things you can draw achievements from. Have you received awards, exceeded your performance indicators, provided excellent customer service, or recognised a problem and then solved it.

Listing your achievements

When listing things, it's fine to do it in your own words. When you put it on your resume though, you'll want it to look professional. To make sure the reader gets the information they're after, and your achievements really stand out, include the action you took and the impact your actions had.

To help you accomplish this, when examining each situation or item on your list think of the acronym P.A.R. This stands for Problem, Action, Result, and it will help you to gather the right information.

Problem. IT Support calls for assistance with mobile devices had long wait times and took staff away from more important duties.

Action. I took responsibility for the setup and support of all the organisation's mobile devices.

Result. Quicker response times for mobile device support and the other IT staff where able to focus on more important tasks.

Put this together and make the language more professional and you get your achievement statement. Took responsibility for setup and support of mobiles devices, which greatly reduced wait time for assistance and increased IT department productivity.

Achievements are a great way to show where you've excelled in your past jobs, what your previous employers gained by employing you, and what a prospective employer stands to gain if they decide to employee you. Put some effort into your achievement statements and show how you've contributed in the past and what kind of worker you are.

Would you like to comment on this article?

Name:
Location:
Comments:
	Please type the red letters and numbers into the red box above. This is to protect our system from SPAM and viruses.

Previous Comments

There are no comments for this blog post as yet. If you have recently commented then please be patient while your comment is reviewed by our staff.