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Accomplishments are personal, professional or other positive attributes that you have achieved in your life. Substantial accomplishments on resume help you to be at an advantage from your competitors.
This is because almost all the applicants applying for the particular job position have the required experience or the degrees in the course. However, it is your accomplishments that help you to stand apart from the rest.
Apart from your skills and talents, resume accomplishments work as a lubricant to fetch you a job opportunity in the organisation. This is because they exhibit your growth and strength capabilities. Moreover, achievements in a resume may help the potential employer to know how you resolved a particular problem with your aptitudes.
Each person has many professional and personal achievements. Professional achievements help the interviewers to know about the way you direct your skills and talents. On the other hand, personal achievements exhibit your soft skills and moral ethics.
According to a study, approximately 45% of the employers are unable to find suitable candidates for job positions. This is due to the lack of alignment of key accomplishments on resume with the job role.
For example, including the degree or major courses, which you pursued is crucial. Moreover, if you achieved other accomplishments while obtaining such degrees, then put them in the resume as well.
Most of the applicants commit the most significant mistake, which leads the resume to go to the dustbin immediately. This mistake is only to include the responsibilities of their previous job positions. However, the previous job duties are of no use until you give the impression of your proficiency in them.
Let us have an insight into the strategies, which show how to write accomplishments in your professional resume.
How to Include Professional Accomplishments on Your Resume?
List Achievements on Your Resume
Go down the memory lane to memorise your professional past accomplishments. Moreover, your present and recent actions hold great importance than past ones.
Your victories can include any award or credible appreciation which you achieved as a result of your hard work. The accomplishments on the resume can also integrate any applaudable activity you performed in a team.
In case you feel it difficult to analyse your achievements, then have a word with your previous colleagues and employer.
Customise Your Accomplishments
A resume is a concise document that exhibits your personality and accomplishments. Hence, it is not feasible to incorporate each attainment with it. You should tailor your actions, according to the job offer of the role. So evade from, including the following accomplishments in your resume.
Old Achievements
Avoid including the old achievements, which have no link with your present job opportunity. This is because, as you move further in your professional career, the school and college feats are not of much importance.
However, if you are in college and are looking out for job opportunities, then your school academic achievements can work in your resume. But you may be a project manager in the company and look out for future opportunities. In such situations, your old skills will not reap you suitable fruits. So it is crucial to give more importance to the recent and present accomplishments than to past achievements.
Sensitive Information
Pay heed not to include your sensitive information as accomplishments in the resume. Such data can be proprietary information.
For example, you were applauded for an activity in your previous company. However, your past employer told you that it is a personal activity, and you cannot exhibit it to others. So do not include such information, which can cause you more significant losses than proffering you benefits.
Alienating or Personal Accomplishments
Accomplishments, which do not align with the job offer, are of no use. They only augment the length of your resume and hence reduce the chances to fetch you the job.
For example, you should always avoid the accomplishments relating to religious or political matters. Instead, pay attention to the achievements, which substantiate your career goals, profession, skills and experience.
Overstated Information
Adorning your resume with overstated or falsified statements tend to exhibit your amateurism. Not only this, but it also curtails your chances of procuring the job opportunity and tarnishes your relations with the prospective recruiters.
This is because the hiring manager can always testify to your skills. He can do this through references or by talking with your prior employers. Moreover, the recruiters may ask you to verify your skills by exhibiting the talents in the interview. You will be straight shown the doors in case you do not validate them.
Work Accomplishment Section
It is better to link your accomplishments with your work experience. This helps the reader to assess your achievements in an organised way along with the issues you face. You can incorporate your achievements in the work experience section as follows-
- Bullet point: Each subsection should contain a maximum of 6 shots. In these bullets, you can write your work experience and substantiate them with the relevant accomplishments. However, make them concise at the same time, to engage the interest of the reader.
- Use action verbs:Â Action verbs or words exhibit your responsibility towards performing the activities in the best possible way. Moreover, they augment the relevancy of your resume and qualify your success. You can use several action verbs like increase, augment, upgraded, promoted, elevated, enhanced, strengthened, amplified, lowered, decreased, truncated, improved, boosted, enriched, modified, etc. Integrating such verbs is crucial because the recruiters do not like to select passive candidates.
- Outcome: While writing your accomplishments, your primary focus should be on the consequence or result. This is because the products help the recruiters to verify your skills and the way you perform the tasks. If your previous results match with their requirements, then they can select you easily.
- Key achievements: After delineating in detail the accomplishment, write the key achievement in the last. Such a feat should be most professional and impressive than others.
- PAR technique: The PAR Technique stands for Problem, Action and Result. So first of all, exhibit the issue to the recruiters. This helps them to be aware of the surroundings and the environment in which you solved the problem. Secondly jot down the action, which you undertook. The story is one of the most critical attributes as it facilitates the manager to know your various skills like problem-solving and decision-making skills. In the end, link your action with the accomplishment and result.
Quantify the Accomplishments
Integrating figures with your accomplishments on a resume makes them more useful. There are three ways to quantify your results.
-
Frequency
Frequency relates to the number of times you performed the activities in a day, week or specific period. It proffers answers to certain questions like-
- How many tasks were you able to complete in a day, week or month?
- What was the approximate length of each task which you completed?
For example
- Wrote 20 articles in a day,
- Designed three posts for LinkedIn, five posts for Instagram and seven posts for Facebook per week to engage the target audience.
-
Scale
Scale refers to the augmented networking outreach, which you helped to procure to your previous organisation.
- With how many people did you work in the team?
- How many international or national companies were you able to link with your organisation?
For example,
- Integrated my efforts with 24 individuals, out of which, 13 were from the marketing department, and the 11 were from the Sales Department.
- Guided eight new interns related to social media marketing.
-
Range
In case you do not know the exact number related to your accomplishments, it is better to jot down a range. Such range can give the recruiters, an estimate of your achievements.
For example-
Conducting effective Instagram marketing and augmenting approximately 4000 to 5000 followers.
Highlighted Achievements
It is crucial to highlight your accomplishments in the resume profile or heading. Resume profile or heading is the initial first paragraph of your resume below the contact information.
This content is the first content, which the interviewers read to have cognisance about your personality. So it should be compelling enough to validate your skills.
Moreover, it is critical to concoct the resume profile in the end. This helps you to fabricate it as a crux and essence of your resume. Distinguished achievements narrate the attainments, which are most impressive and align with your job role.
List Your Awards
Apart from various figures in achievements, awards work as prestigious symbols to exhibit your mastery in a particular field. There are two ways to list your prizes in the resume.
First of all, you can integrate the awards in the work experience section. This helps the readers to verify your working skills through the recognition simultaneously.
For example,
Job post.
Company’s name.
Years of working.
Awards’ name.
Key achievements.
In the 2nd way, you have to create a separate section for the awards. In this section, you should integrate your trophies in reverse chronological order. This means that the recent awards initiate the list.
Moreover, to make your resume concise include only the name and year of the award. You can jot down various awards like national, international or internal awards.
For example,
- 2019, [Award’s name]
- 2015 [Award’s name]
Take Help From Profession Resume Builder
As a job seeker, it is essential to have a strong resume that effectively highlights accomplishments on your resume. A professional resume builder can help you write a dynamic and proactive resume, allowing you to list accomplishments in a clear format. By utilizing resume templates, you can describe your accomplishments in specific sections, such as the education section and work experience.
To make your accomplishments stand out, remember to quantify your achievements with measurable evidence of your skills. Include accomplishment examples that highlight your achievements and provide a compelling narrative about your accomplishments at work. A well-structured resume format will give your resume the edge it needs to get noticed ahead of schedule.
Conclusion
Thus, you should always include a summary of your accomplishments on your resume. Such a summary works to augment your credibility and will substantiate your skills and proficiency in the field.