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Give your resume a new edge with achievements

We are about to wrap up another year, which means you have to update your resume with the many achievements you had this year. Regularly updating your resume will help you put your best foot forward during job applications. Do you know what adds a lot of value to your resume? Translating your duties and responsibilities into value-added contributions on the document.

There are many kinds of achievements that you can include on your resume to create an impressive job application. Let’s look at how you can bring out each type of these achievements on a resume.

Leadership achievements

Even if you are not applying for a leadership or management role right now, adding leadership-focused achievements to your resume is a smart move to make. Employers love to hire individuals that show initiative and problem-solving skills even when they are not hiring for leadership positions. Some great leadership achievements to highlight on your resume are:

How you have progressively advanced responsibilities in your career
The number of people you supervised, trained, or hired
The number of professionals you have mentored
Major organizational changes that you have influenced

Money-related achievements

Many employers are interested in making their businesses profitable. If you are applying for roles that directly influence sales of a business, your resume must highlight financial achievements. Even if you don’t have the specific figures, you can estimate the figures or provide a range. You can consider the following types of financial achievements for your resume:

How you have increased sales of a business
How you have saved costs for previous employers
The amount of money you have handled on the daily
Instances where you were responsible for budgeting

Process-related achievements

Not every role will come with the opportunity for you to highlight your contributions in dollars and profit margins. In such cases, process-related achievements will give your resume more credibility. These achievements show potential employers how well you perform at your role. Some great process-related achievements to add to your resume are:

How you have improved efficiency of a process
How you have introduced new systems to improve accuracy of existing processes
Any standard operating procedures, training materials, or manuals you have created or improved
How you have introduced new tools to get things done faster

Service-related accomplishments

If you are working in a customer-focused field such as healthcare, beauty, hospitality, or tech services, your resume should sport quite a few service-related accomplishments. If you are applying for a customer-facing role in any industry, service-related achievements are very valuable for your resume. Here are some examples of service-related achievements that you can display on your resume:

The number of people you assisted per day/week/month
The number of new clients secured by you for the business
How much you have improved customer satisfaction ratings by
How many clients you have retained for your organization

How can you quantify these achievements on your resume?

Now that we have discussed some of the accomplishments that you can add to your resume, let’s talk about how you can quantify these accomplishments. Measurable achievements add value to your resume. When there’s an instant where you can’t quantify an accomplishment, you should describe it qualitatively on your resume. There are many ways in which you can quantity achievements such as: