How to use achievements on your resume

- What have you achieved in your career? Did you create anything? Implement a new
procedure? Save your company money? Maybe you made them money. Were you
top in sales? The best in recruiting? Promoted frequently? Or asked to lead a
project? A great way to show your achievements is with a bullet point or two at the
beginning or the end of your professional experience. In the exercise files you'll find
an example of how to do this. A caveat to this is that if you don't have enough
achievements to add this to each of the jobs on your resume, you're better off taking
those achievements and moving them into your summary of qualifications. Or, if they
are spectacular enough to warrant their own section, you could add an actual
section labeled achievements, below your summary of qualifications, but above your
professional experience. If you work in sales, this is a far easier job to provide
examples of achievements, and it's expected. But don't just say number one in
sales. While it sounds good, you really should add a time frame and a comparison. So
number one in sales in the western region for the month of August isn't as impressive
as number one in sales across the United States for the first and second quarter of
2015. If you were simply number one in sales for a week among six people on your
team, you might not want to mention it at all. Determine relevance and scale before
making the decision to add it to your resume. So what do you do if you're not in
sales? Administrative assistants always struggle with this. I hear, I don't have any
achievements, I can't make money for the company, my position doesn't affect the
bottom line. Well consider this, if you've ever ordered supplies, sent items via a
courier service, or planned the office holiday party, you've had an opportunity to save
the company money. You might have caught an error in billing that saved the
company a few thousand dollars. You might have sourced a better supply item that
saved money, or if you worked directly for a team that does make money for the
company, then you too have a role in that. I'll even take it one step further and give
you a modified version of a tool I use when I'm working internally with a company
client. I created a way to calculate what I call administrative value, and if you have
difficulty coming up with achievements and quantifying your work, it will help you
express your value and contribution when working in an administrative
capacity. Administrative value works by making the case that you are great at your
job, and by doing your job well you make your team members happy. Happier team
members are more productive at work. They take less sick days, and are more
accurate in their tasks. Happier employees stay longer in their jobs and are more
engaged in their work. Ergo you are effectively increasing the bottom line of your
company by increasing the return on investment an employer makes in the salaries
paid to your team members. Adding an achievement of increased productivity of my
department by 20 percent, or contributed to the 30 percent reduction in turnover
rates within my division, isn't outside of the realm of possibility. The value of
productivity gains and employee engagement, as well as the costs associated with
employee turnover are backed by facts, figures, and lots of studies. And the same
goes for any claims you make on your resume. If you have knowledge of an increase
in productivity, a decrease in turnover, or an increase in profit margins that relates
specifically to the division where you work, you can participate in those positive
outcomes by reviewing the relationship between your role and the results. While the
goal isn't to calculate an exact number, the point of this entire thought process is to
open your mind to areas of achievements you hadn't thought of before, or perhaps
had discounted. Your work has value. It's your job to make that clear to a future
employer. So get started on that list of achievements to make your resume really
stand out from the crowd.

Use awards to upgrade your resume

- Not everyone has won an award. Which is why if you have, this is
definitely a section you can use to upgrade your resume. Awards show that
were dedicated enough to stick to something and have been recognized
for it. When it comes to your resume, deciding what to add and just how
much to add can be difficult. An award in one industry may not matter at
all if you are attempting to change into a different industry. The same is
true for an award in your personal life that doesn't relate specifically to
work. Whether or not to add personal awards to your resume will come
down to three things. Space, relevance, and whether or not the award
might accidentally create a negative impression. Let me explain. Number
one is a determination about space. Your resume should not be longer than
two pages so you need to determine if you have space on your resume to
add this extra information. A great way to add an award to your resume is
in a format similar to the one explained in the achievements video. You can
include a bullet point that describes your award, the date it was obtained,
the award title, and what it was for if it's not apparent from the title. The
formatting example in the exercise files works in this section as well
because it's unlikely that you would have enough awards to warrant a
separate section on the resume. Adding it in italics, below the job where
you earned it, will save you valuable space on your resume. The second
factor is relevance. Will a future employer care? Is this award relevant? An
award for best creative design when you are applying for a job in marketing
will definitely be relevant. But what if it doesn't specifically relate to
work? Should you include it? Though you may have received an award for
an accomplishment outside of work, every award demonstrates hard work
and commitment. And those are traits that a future employer will value. The
third and more difficult to determine is whether something negative can
come out of disclosing personal information. Meaning if you won an award
of top five little league coach in the region, you have to decide if you want
future employers to assume you have children, assume you won't be
able to work late because you have to attend practices after work and
assume that coaching is a high priority for you at a time when they will
want work to be your priority. That's not always fair but that's how it is
sometimes. This is why customization of your resume is so necessary. An
award added to your resume for one job may not be appropriate for
another. If you research the company and learn more about the culture it
will make these types of decisions much easier.

When to include publications on your resume

- Have you appeared in print? Been quoted in an article? Of course, if you
authored a book, eBook, trade association article, industry paper, or
anything else of importance, publications would be the section to list it in. If
you're in PR, marketing, or academia, this section is probably a no
brainer. But us regular people can use this section too. With the increased
popularity of blogging, it's difficult not to have something in this
section. LinkedIn has made this easy. I get more than ten notifications each
day about a new blog post by one of my LinkedIn connections. So a word
of caution here. Listing a LinkedIn post you wrote is probably not
acceptable unless the post you wrote is relevant to the job you are applying
to and it garnered a large number of views. What's a large number? Take a
look at well respected blogs and see what kind of views they get. While you
may not hit 100,000 views, 2500 might be a good goal. And to be clear, I
mention these numbers in relation to the relevance aspect of the
article. Will a recruiter think your information is relevant if only 100 people
read it? Maybe, maybe not. I've said this previously and it's just as true now
as it was before, if you write something, expect someone to read it. And
you should always be writing with that expectation. Therefore, anything you
post should be professional in nature. Because once it hits the internet, you
can't take it back and you have no control over where it goes or who reads
it. I still get notifications that information I wrote many years ago is
currently being shared and posted on new websites that didn't even exist
when I first wrote it. Will a recruiter or potential employer read everything
you post? Probably not. Will they read at least one thing? The answer is, it
depends. They may not read anything at first, but if you make it past a
phone interview it's much more likely that they'll take the time to read
it. I've known candidates who were removed from consideration because of
what they wrote on the internet. Everyone by now knows about photos that
might prevent you from getting a job offer, but what you write is just as
important. Future employers want to know if you are a subject matter
expert. Writing outside of your regular job helps you establish this
expertise. It shows that you have the knowledge and that others think this
knowledge is relevant because they have not only read it but they have
liked it and shared it. You can indicate this on your resume by adding a
section labeled publications. If you have enough relevant material to
warrant its own section. If not, and you only have one or two relevant
works, you can add them as a bullet point under your current job if it's
applicable. Alternatively, you may want to include it in your volunteer work
or consulting work section. Think back over your career and think about
works you may have written. Trade magazines, an article for your company
newsletter, an industry journal, or an online blog. Find the work and then
determine its relevance to the job you are applying to. Once you've done
that, don't forget the last part. Determine the value. Was your article read
by the many, or the few?