You’ll want to think about highlighting your accomplishments and achievements in addition to your abilities, education, and professional experiences, which are highlighted in your resume. Achievements and successes can stand alone on your resume or be scattered across the overview, work experience, education, and skills sections. In order to stand out from the competition and assist employers in better grasping your abilities and talents, including achievements on your resume is a good idea.
This article explains how to include accomplishments on your resume and provides practical examples.
Should I place accomplishments on my resume?
Most job seekers are aware that their positions’ tasks and duties should be listed on their resumes, but they frequently forget to add one of their professional histories’ most crucial components—their accomplishments. A resume accomplishment section can assist prospective employers to see your abilities, track record of success, and level of development.
Which accomplishments should I include on my resume?
Any achievements you have made in your career, education, or personal life are considered accomplishments. For instance, you should mention it in your education section if you earned academic honors while earning your degree and had a GPA of 3.5 or better. This information reveals your well-developed abilities to learn and apply new facts.
You can strengthen your application by listing other pertinent professional achievements, such as surpassing positional targets or obtaining certifications unique to your field. To further understand what credentials will be most remarkable to employers, review the job description for any requirements or desired qualifications.
Examples of accomplishments on your resume
Your CV should include a list of your accomplishments. The overview, abilities, professional experience, and dedicated accomplishments sections are the most frequent venues for you to highlight your successes. Examples of how to include successes in each section are provided below.
Summary section
On resumes, the summary is frequently the first piece. It emphasizes your noteworthy accomplishments and transferable talents that are pertinent to the position you’re looking for. It’s the section that hiring managers will immediately notice, making it a fantastic spot to list pertinent accomplishments.
Have you ever questioned how hiring managers select which resumes reading and which ones to pass over? They scan resumes...
Example 1
With a recent degree in electrical engineering and more than four years of professional experience. extensive knowledge of semiconductor process systems, simulators, and frequency calibrators. I’m looking for a job that will let me use my innovative problem-solving and leadership abilities.
Example 2
10+ years of marketing management expertise in a growth-oriented capacity. At XYZ Company, I was recently named 2019 Marketer of the Year. Looking to join a user-centric company and bring my leadership, passion, and expertise.
Example 3
seasoned graphic designer with five years’ worth of expertise working with Adobe’s top-of-the-line design software. The University of Colorado Boulder certification in Graphic Design Elements.
Professional Experience
A crucial part of your resume is the section devoted to your employment history. Employers can determine whether you are qualified for the position by looking at the content of this section, which highlights your qualifications and talents. While describing your experience with specific duties is vital, listing them as accomplishments has more impact and show the tangible benefits you have brought to another organization.
Think about the “what” and the “why,” or what you did and why you did it when creating the bullet points for this section. Did you succeed in achieving your objectives, saving the business money or time, gaining new knowledge, or improving something? You will become more goal-oriented as a result of this. When feasible, use numbers to illustrate your successes.
See some examples below.
Example 1
CLOUD CLEARWATER | Chicago, IL
3D Graphic Designer, Graphics America, LLC
January 2016 – Present
- created a number of graphic designs for more than 20 prestigious Fortune 500 companies.
- After a year, “Best New Graphic Designer” was recognized.
- Assisted in arranging three sizable contracts with new clients, which helped the company’s profits rise 5% in 2017 compared to the previous year.
Example 2
TRADE LOT | Tampa, FL
Audit Intern
May 2016–April 2018
- Processed transactions for cash, checks, and credit with a 98% accuracy rate to reduce end-of-day balancing errors.
- Balanced check payments, quick detection, and correction of inconsistencies
- Exactly planned and despatched bank deposits (each worth $100K) semiweekly
Example 3
CRANE & JENKINS | Denver, CO
Customer Service Representative
March 2017 – Present
- by phone and email, settle more than 300 customer complaints per week, continually achieving goals
- The first to create a better method for contacting dissatisfied consumers reduced customer attrition by 6%.
- Mentor and teach four new hires about JIRA, Salesforce CRM, and conflict resolution
- Reduce average customer handling time by suggesting a more effective call script, which management accepted and adopted.
- average customer satisfaction rate of 97%, which is 12% higher than the team’s aim so far.
Accomplishments section
If you have notable accomplishments outside of the job, including one in your accomplishments section may be beneficial. Adding a “Career Highlights” section to the top of your resume, which highlights the numerous achievements you’ve made throughout your career at various jobs, might also be useful if you’re farther along in your career.
See examples below:
Example 1
Accomplishments and Achievements
- $10k was raised for cancer research through neighborhood initiatives.
- created and coordinated yearly “Feed the Homeless” activities in my neighborhood
- 2018 saw me complete the Appalachian Trail on foot.
Example 2
Career Highlights
- Saved XYZ Company for more than five years.
- Developed and implemented a new training program that increased customer satisfaction by 25%.
- Managed a team of more than 25 international customer care representatives.
Example accomplishments by industry
To identify the kind of accomplishments to add to your resume, it can be useful to view instances of successes broken down by popular industry. See the Example below:
Business
- managed a quality assurance program that reduced rework by 40% and reduced annual production costs by $250,000.
- consistently surpass monthly KPIs by at least 10%
- adopted Lean Management guidelines, which resulted in a 35% reduction in overall operating costs.
Education
- developed a culture of care, reduced negative interactions between students, and implemented research-based behavior management techniques.
- Make frequent home visits to teach ten or more impaired kids who are unable to participate in classroom instruction, enhancing their comprehension and developing relationships with parents.
- created and oversaw Career & College Day, exposing 60 institutions of higher learning and businesses to 800 children and their parents.
Engineering
- 20+ websites’ front ends have been designed and developed utilizing jQuery, AJAX, RequireJS, and Handlebars. Js coordinated the company’s equipment repairs, which resulted in a $25,000 decrease in equipment costs.
- $3,000 in monthly savings were achieved by getting rid of unused servers and consolidating databases.
Finance
- By examining past-due accounts and conducting customer surveys to identify typical payment issues, bad debt was reduced by 12%.
- Developed cost-cutting strategies and productivity measures, such as improved internal audit processes and company-wide usage of SAP ERP software.
- compared payroll’s OT Differential Report with authorized OT requests to analyze and report disparities on overtime expenses. This led to a 33% cost reduction.
Marketing and sales
- Improved formatting and readability on website pages, together with keyword optimization, reduced bounce rates from 62% to 34%.
- A 33% increase in upgrade sales over two years was the consequence of successfully requesting orders and promoting product upgrades to existing clients.
- penned and produced a number of YouTube videos that received more than 20,000 views overall
Achievements to keep off your resume
Even though your resume might benefit from a variety of educational, professional, and personal accomplishments, there are some things you should think about excluding.
1. Old or irrelevant achievements
Even if you are probably proud of many of your former accomplishments, as your career progresses, some of them might no longer be relevant to include on a resume. Achievements from your youth or from high school, for instance, could not be pertinent information for employers if it doesn’t relate to the position.
Include achievements from your time in school, such as academic prizes and leadership positions, if you are a recent college graduate. Focusing on accomplishments from your undergraduate career is not a good idea if you have been working for a while.
2. Personal or alienating topics
Some successes or accomplishments could be viewed as being too private. For Example, you might steer clear of achievements in politics or religion. Include only pertinent examples from your profession, volunteer work, or interests for the greatest outcomes. Professional success should always take first.
3. Exaggerated information
Be careful not to exaggerate achievements on your resume. During the hiring process, you can be asked to submit particular information about your accomplishments. Additionally, companies could check the information you listed by contacting your references or previous jobs. If such information is inaccurate or overblown, you risk losing employment offers or harming your chances with potential employers.
4. Accomplishments that reveal sensitive information
Be careful with the information you include about your professional achievements. Some information can be confidential or privileged. Ensure that you ask your present and former employers what information should be kept private. Keep your accomplishments vague if you’re unsure.
5. No space on your resume for an accomplishments section
You should avoid including an accomplishments section if your resume is getting too long and challenging to read. Instead, include your accomplishments in the sections for your education, experience, and talents. In most circumstances, it’s preferable to keep your resume to one page.
While certain personal triumphs and accomplishments might demonstrate your commitment to achieving goals, professional and educational accomplishments can assist employers to grasp your current abilities and value as an employee. Your resume can include highlights of your significant academic and professional achievements throughout, or you can designate a specific section for additional accomplishments.
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