Accomplishments & Responsibilities
For each job you have listed within the past 10 years, note no
less than ten things you accomplished at each position and ten
things for which you were responsible. Did you save money? Note
that. Did you increase sales? Companies are greedy and will want to
know how much you can do for them.
What if I had a job where the work was so routine I didn't
accomplish much?
The answer is in phrasing responsibilities as accomplishments.
Example:
Responsibility: Fixed problems with PCs and file servers.
Accomplishment: Troubleshot in a Windows, Novell, and Unix
environment, with over 95% fix rate.
Never mind that if you didn't fix all the problems, you would
have been canned. It also doesn't matter that you were part of a
20-person team. Numbers seem to create a validity that spills over
into the other areas of your resume.
What if politics got in the way of the work I did?
No one needs to know. You aren't the first and you won't be the
last. For instance, one of the Job Fairies built an intranet site
for a client company. It integrated a new help desk system, all the
forms the company used, and employee locator information. The
management of the company "forgot" that they had already
implemented a new (working!) help desk system, decided to look for
another system, did not use the intranet, and reverted to their old
practice of sending all the employee phone numbers in a spreadsheet
to the whole company every time there was a change. Does this mean
it had to stay off the resume? No. Had they been bright enough to
take advantage of the system they spent all that time and money
getting built, it would have saved them over $150K per year. The
Fairy in question listed the project under the bullet points in the
Experience section anyway. If a company can't run its own business
properly, it does not mean you have any less skills because of that!
Perhaps you will get a chance to do the same work for another
company later on in your career. Maybe it will be successful because
they won't be so choked by too many layers of management and bad
communication. Look on the bright side - it will be easier the
second time around...
Proceed to Filling in the Template.
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