It is important that you show your achievements effectively – it is what recruiters look for in a CV. This is what brings out your capabilities and makes your real expertise visible. Why you are good at your job is displayed through your achievements.
Here a 5 tips on how to show your achievements effectively on your résumé-
1) Define your Achievements
What are your achievements?
Most job-seekers make the mistake of only focusing on their roles and responsibilities. But these cover only your area of knowledge and experience and do not point to why you are good at your job.
Anything that benefited the company, process or client is an achievement. For example – If you did some cost saving, or launched a new product or completed a project on time then it is an achievement.
It is surprising that so many job-seekers omit including achievements saying that they have no achievements. This is a fatal mistake. Never think that the work you did was not special enough to qualify as achievements. You don’t need proof like a recommendation letter or a promotion to show something as an achievement.
2) Quantify your achievements
Your achievements cannot be your opinion. They have to be factual and clearly show the benefit you have created for the company.
So it is not enough to say I reduced transportation costs by re-negotiating the contract with the vendor. You need to quantify it, e.g. reduced cost by 30% .Or saying I negotiated a deal for setting up a 25 acre warehousing unit is an achievement. Or I improved the component inventory monitoring system resulting in savings of over $90,000!
Also make sure your achievements that were rewarded by the company are explained. For example, ‘Won the award for best salesman of the year’, does not effectively show your achievement, but ‘received award for achieving the highest sales of 1 crore INR in my territory’ shows it.
# Numbers, facts, figures are needed for expressing your achievements effectively
3) Choose your achievements carefully
What achievements to show is a very important factor.
When you show achievements relating to your current job make sure it also reflects your level of seniority. For example, if you are a sales executive then saying that I achieved my target of 1 million USD and won a trip to Singapore is good.
But as a Vice President or CEO it may not sound like a great achievement because managerial roles require handling a team of executives or distributors, or resource handling, so the achievement has to reflect an achievement of a corporate goal rather than an individual goal. For example since I joined, I expanded operations to the Far East market resulting in an organizational growth of 40%.
4) Balance the visibility of your achievements on your resume
It is very important that your current job shows achievements, because recruiters are interested in what you are doing now rather than your past.
What you achieved as a Trainee or as a junior executive is really not that important if you have packed in 10 years experience after that.
# The current and two prior jobs must reflect achievements
5) Present your Achievements effectively
Your achievements must connect with the company to which they belong. So do not make a combined list. Put your achievements alongside the company to which it belongs.
Use simple, precise English. Use bullet points.
And remember that achievements generally have to be in the past tense even if you mention that it is a continuing benefit. For example – Set up new offices in 4 countries in a record time of 6 months, is your achievement even though it may have spinoffs of benefits for the company on a continuous basis but it must be stated in the past tense.
