When a person is in the process of making a resume, one of the most important points is a description of the employee’s merits. Perhaps when you’re writing a resume, you think that highlighting your achievements isn’t required but this is not true. Highlighting your achievements in a resume is crucial and therefore, you must know how to describe achievements in a resume. In this article, we have highlighted why and how to describe your professional achievements in a resume in order to grow in your career.
Your perception of your strengths and the ability to talk about them is a crucial parameter for the employer. If you still stubbornly think that you don’t have any special achievements in life, here are some reasons why this may be happening.
REASONS WHY YOU THINK YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY ACHIEVEMENTS
1. You misunderstand what achievement means
In work life, an achievement is considered to be an increase in the qualification or education of a person. Examples of good achievements can be the successful execution of different projects or the achievement of the goals that have been set. You must understand what achievements mean in order to learn how to describe your professional achievements in a resume.
2. You didn’t have any goals
One of the reasons to think that you don’t have any achievements is that you don’t have completed goals that you could consider achievements. In order to see your achievements, you must first know exactly what you’re going to achieve. Setting goals and working towards them is very important in order to successfully advance in your career. Read our blog on the 5 BEST STRATEGIES TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE to learn about effective strategies that can help you grow in your career.
3. You’re being modest
You underestimate your accomplishments as an employee. If you consider something important to be unimportant, you are reflecting a lot about your personality to the employer. You should not underestimate your achievements and learn how to describe achievements in a resume. Read our blog on WHAT ARE THE DO’S AND DON’TS OF RESUME WRITING? to have an in-depth understanding of the do’s & don’ts of resume writing.
4. You really haven’t accomplished anything
It might be possible that you just started working and really don’t have anything outstanding in your work life. But in such a case you can freely give examples of achievements from your personal life, or study, which can somehow be applied to work. You must know, how to describe achievements in a resume to create your first impression in front of the employer. Read our blog on 6 SIMPLE TIPS TO KEEP IN MIND WHILE RESUME-BUILDING to learn about the effective tips that can help you build a professional resume.
If you are not able to find your dream job because of a lack of experience or achievements, then you can try looking for jobs abroad. In order to achieve something in life, one mustn’t only set goals for oneself, but have a place to implement them. Working abroad is a great chance for you to express yourself and add things to your list of achievements.
Do all jobs require you to write about your achievements?
All jobs do not require you to write about your achievements. This depends on the culture and requirements of the company where you’re going to work. It also depends on your expectations from the job, for example, if you are aiming to grow in your career in a particular company, you must make an effort to ensure that your employer is aware of your strengths as an employee. Therefore, you must know how to describe achievements in a resume. But if you apply for the position of a cashier, a driver, or an attendant in some institution, where your focus is not on the long-term association, then you may not write about all your achievements. In any case, before ignoring your achievements section in the resume, you must think twice about the repercussions you might face. If you have something to share, don’t miss the opportunity to show your best side and share your potential advantages over other employees. Read our blog on 5 UNIVERSAL RULES FOR EFFECTIVE RESUME WRITING to learn about the rule for writing an effective resume.
How to simplify the process of understanding your achievements and how to express them in a document?
Convert everything you write to numbers. Think about everything you did, it could be the percentage of the quality of the work done by the department before and after you’ve joined, it could be a 35% increase in car sales, a 20% increase in customer traffic due to advertising you created, a 10% over fulfilment of the company’s annual revenue target and etc. The main thing is that it’s an easy way to understand what you did, and how much your work is better than the work of the previous employee in that place. Units of measurement don’t matter, the main thing is the simplicity and clarity of the data. You should write about what you directly did, and not about what improved in itself and not with your participation. By understanding your achievements, you will be able to understand how to describe achievements in a resume.
If it’s hard for you to express what you did in numbers or it’s impossible at all, just write the facts. For example, I transferred the company to electronic financial accounting or document management, sold all batches of products without loss, wrote a computer program to improve the processing of company data, and so on. Not all achievements can be expressed in numbers, and ordinary words can do their job better. You can also combine all these methods with each other, the main thing is that the information should be easy to understand and accessible to those who’ll work with it. Read our blog on IMPORTANT WORK ETIQUETTES TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS & GROW IN A JOB to have an in-depth understanding of the basic work etiquette that will help you grow in your career.
If you’re a fresher, then you can use personal examples from your achievements in school or college. This will reflect your approach and mindset towards life. Also, whatever you write should be easy to project into the work you’ll be doing. If you are an experienced candidate and still don’t have any achievements, you can highlight the work you did in your previous company. To learn how to describe your achievement in a resume, you must write the achievements in an attractive manner. Your achievements are crucial and can be a deciding factor for your job.
The points mentioned in this article will help you describe achievements in a resume. If this article didn’t help you much, then perhaps you’re either inattentively looking for your achievements, or there are really few of them. But if you think you’re the perfect fit for a particular job, you can try your best to write every piece of information about yourself on your resume to make up for the lack of your achievements.
