Your Achievements Show Off Your Key Skills & Abilities

Your Achievements, as well as being something you feel proud about, actually show off the tangible results that you accomplished while carrying out your job role.

They are NOT the same as your duties or responsibilities that you perform that are listed in your job description.

Everyone who has the same job role also has the same duties and responsibilities, so you need to be able to identify those extra things that you did which benefited or added value to the organization. These differentiate you from other co-workers who have a similar job to you.

The reason for that is this: Your achievements are the results of how you applied your skills and abilities in a way that produced something beyond the normal responsibilities of your job.

Almost the worst thing you can say in your cover letters or resume is: "I was responsible for..." because that doesn't tell the prospective employer whether you actually did anything, whereas an achievement clearly defined does!

It's much better to say you were "responsible to..." the CEO for example, for delivering the expected results.

Try it this way: Describe exactly what you did, in other words, the purpose of your job AND its outcomes because those outcomes or achievements will differentiate you from others who have the same job as you. Even better, when you put some numbers into the mix, quantify the statement, you rise in the scale of being considered the right job candidate.

Achievements are your richest source of information providing concrete and tangible evidence of what you have done so far. They are also the best indicators of what you might do in the future – if you’ve done it once, you can probably do it again!

Above all, what you will need is to have the desire to do it again.

An achievement is something that you have done which has made a difference to you or to others. You may have done it on your own or with and through others. It is not necessarily momentous or world-shattering, but will be something that you feel good about. It doesn't matter whether the achivement comes from your "official" job or some other activity in work or at play.

If you've achieved something you have used a level of skill which could be a valuable job skill elsewhere and help sell your skills and accomplishments to win a new job. One of the quickest ways of rebuilding your career is to start feeling positive, about the future and a new job, and about the exciting possibilities that are now in front of you. Reminding yourself about your achievements, and feeling proud of them is one of the best ways to boost your own self esteem.

Now I know that most of us “freeze up” when asked about achievements, but you must do this exercise if you are serious about getting where you want to be; so no excuses!

For example:

• Convinced colleagues of the need to change working practices

• Launched the new product line in record time

• Reduced supply costs by 15%

• Taught my dad how to use his new computer

• Secured a 10% increase in sales by...

• Raised lots of money for a local charity through a new fund-raising event.

• Reorganized the work-flow for assembling the sub-frame and reduced time to completion.

• Completed a two year part-time MBA course while balancing work and family commitments

These can relate to unpaid as well as to paid work and also to leisure activities.

Ask yourself this: do your successes tend to involve just your own work or other peoples? In other words are you most effective when in a team?

Are they mostly to do with work or are there some from other parts of your life?

Can you detect a theme to your accomplishments and if so what is it?

Your significant achievements help to show your true value!

Start to list at least your top ten in the way shown above by using an active verb at the beginning of the phrase; you’ll hear how much more powerful it sounds when described this way.

Achievements Statements

These examples of Achievements Statements are what you should be aiming for.

• Exploited anniversaries and historical events, major Hollywood film spin-offs such as the Da Vinci code and a documentary costing £15k; generated over £250k profit covering a number of territories.
• Led a cross functional team with members from multiple business units for the creation of a new R&D investment strategy to deliver over $300M extra revenue per year.
• Coordinated the revision of the National HIV/AIDS Health Sector Strategic Plan (HSSP 2005-2009)and developed HSSP 2010-2015.
• Upgraded basic IT systems; introduced a new IT network, implemented Microsoft Exchange, MS Outlook & new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software in conjunction with the latest Blackberry technology for a remote sales team.

It's important to remember the hard work you put into getting to the position you're at. You shouldn't take your current position for granted, ensure you secure your success with a liability insurance policy to provide cover whilst your out and about working with clients.

Analyze what you did and think through to what skills you used when you did the thing you achieved i.e. how did I do that? What did I need to do it?

When you've done this, try this acid test - ask "So what" to each of your statements.

How do they look now? These self describing skills also make a great interview introduction, because your achievements are the basis of job winning personal descriptions. This can apply to your interview itself, the words you use in a cover letter, or the way you write your CV or resume. The other obvious point is when it comes to your annual performance appraisal.

You can now download the "Phrases for Performance Appraisals Guidebook" and use the exact phrases that professionals use to write their concise and powerful appraisals

Here's how to Analyse your skills

When you can identify that your contributions resulted in time or money savings, enhanced efficiency or quality and service improvements, try to quantify the saving or improvement as a result. Quality improvements can be justifiably claimed through reduced rejection rates, client retention or positive customer feedback.

The reason for that is that your achievements show how effectively you applied your specific work skills, your competencies and individual abilities in a way that produced something beyond the normal responsibilities of your job.

Try to describe these using CV Action Words which in effect are CV power words that put that special extra injection into your CV Writing. When you create your CV or resume, these are the words that you should be sure you use.

In other words these specific words are what create REAL IMPACT

Look at the list on this page and see where you can use them. They work well at the beginning of a bullet point in your section of achievements.

Here are 175 more Action Words that you can use to give more power and oomph to your written and spoken words. Being able to express yourself more elaborately, whether in your Resume, CV or Cover Letters achievements, with well-chosen words is the sign of an interesting and clever person.

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