Put Your Accomplishments in Context

Dear Liz,

I like how you are teaching us to view our career histories differently and more creatively. I never liked saying on my resume that I have seven years of progressively more responsible blah blah blah. But I am stuck when it comes to listing exciting accomplishments. I have done mostly staff assignments in HR and Benefits where I pretty much did the same thing all day. I resolved Benefits issues for employees and created reports and sat in meetings and worked on projects related to cost allocation and vendor quality. How would I make these tasks more exciting in an accomplishment-focused resume?

Thanks,

Tamara

__________________________________________

Dear Tamara,

We have picked up a lot of useless ideas (I call them barnacles) during our years as corporate Joes and Sallies. One of the worst, most hard-to-shake barnacles is the notion of describing our work histories sideways. What do I mean by that? Let’s think about it this way.

Employers want to know that when we encounter a problem or a hill to be climbed, we’ll have the will and the skill to surmount the challenge. They want to know that when we’re confronted with a vexing and unfamiliar puzzle, we’ll jump into action, gather the information we need, and go to work. They want to know that we understand the impact of our work, that we make thoughtful decisions as we devise an attack plan, and that we understand the consequences of our actions.

These are reasonable expectations on an employer’s part.

So why is it that when we’re taught how to write a resume, we’re advised to leave out the most important information, namely, the context for our actions in the past?

Read the full story and leave a comment here