Do Your Achievements Make You Stand Out?

How you describe and communicate your achievements will make a big difference in what the other person will remember about you...

Yes, modesty is a virtue, but today it's time to let your accomplishments shine. Many professionals have years of experience in their fields and have had many impressive achievements. When they try to talk about these things in an interview, it often falls flat. Don’t sell yourself short. Today we are going to learn a few ways to describe your accomplishments in a way that will capture the attention of your interviewer.

It doesn’t matter what industry you’ve worked in. I’ve worked with people across many industries who can only muster the most basic description of their accomplishments even when they have plenty of experience.

The problem is that even if you know what you have achieved, it can be challenging to put it into words that will catch a potential employer’s attention.

What’s more, if a few accomplishments do show up on a candidate’s resume, they often fail to illustrate the concrete details of how it impacted their business. Hiring a new employee can be stressful and a bit risky. Employers want to know exactly what they’re getting into, so you need to show them what they can expect when they hire you.

Let your accomplishments work for you

Why is describing your accomplishments so important? The benefits go beyond bragging rights. When you express your achievements effectively, you show your employer how you take action, the skills you used and learned during the process, and your results which are sure to impress. If you don’t mention some of your relevant accomplishments on your resume or in an interview, then you won’t stand out when employers and recruiters are sifting through a long list of candidates.

Describing your accomplishments can effectively advance your career, help you find direction in your career, and take your resume, LinkedIn, and interviewing skills to the next level. Let’s look at a few tips that will help you leverage your achievements to advance your career.

SMART achievements

Many candidates freeze up when asked about their accomplishments, and they often say too much or too little. SMART achievements will help turn basic descriptions of your accomplishments into stories that will make you stand out. SMART achievements stand for specific, measurable, action, results, and timeline. You should make sure your description includes each of these aspects. However, perhaps the biggest mistake people make when talking about their achievements is not making them measurable.

I see far too many descriptions that don’t tell employers anything about what they achieved. Measurable accomplishments are not to be underestimated. In fact, 34% of employers said a lack of quantifiable results was among the top three reasons a resume gets overlooked. The thing is, they need to know you are being honest. When you make your accomplishments measurable, reviewers will have more confidence that you’re telling the truth.

Plus, you want to paint a picture for them. When you say what you did was “very big” or had a “great impact,” that doesn’t tell potential employers enough about what you did for your company. People like to see numbers.

If you include numbers on your CV, resume, or in your story, those numbers will stick out to them.

They may not remember your entire story, but they’ll remember key points like the fact that you increased your sales by 30%.

Get feedback

Sometimes it helps to get an outside perspective. If you’re stuck and you can’t think of accomplishments to put down, ask a friend or colleague. They may not know the ins and outs of what it took to reach your goals, but they can help jog your memory. It’s also a good idea to practice talking about your achievements with someone else. They can help you find the balance between being too forward and not saying enough.

Write as you go

Five years from now, it’s going to be hard to remember what you achieved last week. That’s why it’s so important to continue writing about your accomplishments as you go. You might not complete your full description, but note the essential information for each part of a SMART achievement. You’ll thank yourself down the road when you don’t have to worry about coming up with a list from scratch, and you can’t remember the details of everything that happened.

Pro-tip for when you’re on-the-job

Go even further and write down your accomplishments before you achieve them. You can turn them into goals and set up a resume or CV that will impress potential employers. Your story is what makes you stand out from other applicants, so ask yourself what would make your story more relevant to the company you want to work for. You could even look at descriptions of jobs you think you might be interested in and start working toward accomplishing the things they are looking for in a candidate.

Not only will describing your achievements in this way help you write your CV and prepare for interviews, but it will also help you build your Personal Brand.