Lately I have seen many resumes that have no key achievements listed whatsoever. However, this is a very important part on your resume and regardless of what position you have held for the past few years every position produces a wave of opportunities to let your human capital shine. Here are a few tips on how to identify and use them correctly on your CV/Resume.
Differentiate between duties and accomplishments
Sit down and do some brainstorming about what you have done in the past 12 months and especially what you have achieved during that time. This can be a bit of a difficult task and a lot of people struggle about this part. Try listing your duties first, you can use the PD that you received when accepting the position. Then think about what you have achieved during that time, such as you may have completed a project on time and below budget or the likes. It is important to not confuse duties with accomplishments.
As an example, your duty as a Marketing expert is to market a product and to research and analyse marketing trends. Your accomplishments, however, included boosting product sale by 20%, amplifying social media engagement by 10% and receiving an internal award for best marketing campaign launched.
Quantify achievements
It is all about numbers and statistics these days. The best way to make a point of how much of an asset you were to the previous companies is by using numbers and figures and back yourself up by using them like the example used above.
Be selective about achievements
Once you have written down a list of all your achievements, you then need to narrow them down to the position that you’re applying for rather than adding them all. Consider the results you delivered and the value you added.
There is really nothing more meaningless as to list down reward after reward. What does it mean? You need to translate them into benefits for the company. The key to a list of successes is to determine how YOU added value and how it helped the company to achieve their goals (and yours).
The achievements you list should be in line of what your future employer wants. To determine this requires you to peruse the PD/advertisement of the role you are applying for including the corporate website and learn what the firm values the most and what it expects from its staff.
Format of achievements
List achievements according to priority and importance for the role you are applying for and don’t lie or exaggerate about any achievements as it will come out eventually and nothing would be more embarrassing as to get caught up on this.
Keep it short! Employers don’t want to read your autobiography. Again, only list the most important and relevant key achievements on your resume. Remember, therefore it is called “key” achievement and not just “achievements”.
Contact us today if you want to find out how CareerVibes can help you build an effective resume which is properly structured and included the keywords that recruiters are looking for.