Tips for Highlighting Resume Accomplishments

Here’s the lowdown on using resume accomplishments to land interviews.

One of the most important things a hiring manager or recruiter looks for in a resume is accomplishments. You really need resume accomplishments over everyday tasks to get your resume noticed.

However, many people have a difficult time coming up with specific accomplishments they can point to or that they think will make them stand out. In this post, we share insights into how to identify and add accomplishments to your resume to land interviews. 

What are Resume Accomplishments?

You might be asking, “What is considered an accomplishment?” 

An accomplishment on a resume is something that shows how you went above and beyond everyday tasks to achieve something. They are specific activities in which you achieve something at some point throughout your career, either at work or through activities outside of work. Accomplishments can be the results you achieved through work tasks, a special award or recognition, or simply an initiative in which you demonstrated leadership.

Resume accomplishments vs. responsibilities

Many job seekers make the mistake of listing job duties and responsibilities over achievements, which doesn’t really speak to hiring teams. Fortunately, it’s relatively easy for duties to be reworded to sound like achievements.

Here is an example of a responsibility on a resume:

"Responsible for seeking out new marketing campaigns to increase revenue."

Let's see this reworded to sound like an achievement:

Increased revenue by 26% by implementing new paid marketing channels, including Google Adwords, Adroll, and Bing Ads.

See the difference? The second description shows an actual accomplishment with quantifiable achievements. This is much more effective than the first description.

In the next few sections, we share tips and ideas on how to write and come up with a list of resume accomplishments, with examples. We also discuss how to decide which accomplishments to include and the types of accomplishments you should avoid listing. 

Where should you include accomplishments on a resume?

Technically, accomplishments should be highlighted throughout your resume. After all, receiving a college degree or a certification is an accomplishment that would go into your Education section. That said, your resume summary and work history content will allow you to really express your accomplishments by highlighting specific results from your career.  

Tips to effectively highlight resume accomplishments 

Let’s address the struggle people often face in terms of how to word resume accomplishments for the best outcome. Here are three considerations to help you write resume accomplishments in a way that makes your resume stand out.

1. Consider your vocabulary. Simply improving the vocabulary on your resume can make a responsibility sound like an achievement. You should never use the term “responsible for” on a resume, as it never sounds like an achievement. Instead, when describing accomplishments, use powerful action verbs and keywords that hiring managers love to see.

Achieved, improved, trained, managed, and created are examples of verbs that hiring managers like to see on a resume. 

Example: "Improved return on ad spend by 22% through A/B testing and optimizing various landing pages. 

2. Use the CAR method. When writing out resume accomplishments, the CAR method, which stands for “Challenge, Action, Result,” can be very useful. For each accomplishment, what was the challenge, what did you do about it, and what was the result? Taking into consideration each of these elements supports you in sharing a compelling story to entice hiring managers. 

Consider the following example: “Led and trained team of 10 sales professionals, increasing quarterly sales by 15% in a single quarter.” 

The unwritten challenge is increasing sales. The action is leading and training 10 sales professionals. The result is increasing sales by 15% in a quarter. 

3. Quantify your results. You should be using numbers to quantify your results wherever possible, as doing so turns simple descriptions into achievements that grab the attention of a hiring manager. This is because sharing data helps show the hiring manager what you can achieve — they can more readily visualize how you can succeed on the job. 

Look for ways to quantify your experiences by highlighting things like the number of people you worked with, the number of items you completed, how many employees you managed, and the level of improvements you achieved. 

Example: "Created engaging content, such as infographics and videos, which drove 2,000 leads in the first month."

Ideas to generate resume accomplishments 

When crafting a resume, one of the most difficult things many people run into is coming up with a list of achievements that effectively showcase their knowledge, skills, and abilities. If this describes you, here’s a list of ideas to help you easily identify resume accomplishments to incorporate into your resume. 

1. Compile a list. Have a paper and pen, Word, or Google Doc open so you can write or type out every accomplishment you come up with. Once you have your list, you can then choose which of the achievements should be added to your resume — aim for the ones that will resonate with the company you’re applying to. Don’t forget about using the right language, quantifying your achievements, and telling a story using the CAR method. 

2. Review your awards, certifications, and competitions. Have you received any awards or certifications on the job? Any company competitions you participated in and did well? If so, you can include these awards on your resume as an excellent way to stand out and catch the attention of a hiring manager. Example: "Won first place in the annual sales challenge out of 34 participants."

3. List special projects you were selected for. Include any project you were selected to work on because of your performance or knowledge. This really shows the employer that you stand out from your other colleagues. Example: "Selected as one of three employees to work on the [Project Description]."

4. Consider times when you exceeded expectations. Was there a time when you not only met expectations or a quota but exceeded it? If so, it’s another accomplishment to include on a resume. Example: "Exceeded sales quota by 50% by producing engaging content using the company’s social media accounts."

5. Include examples of times when you helped to cut costs. Hiring managers love to see specific examples of a way you decreased expenses. This could be anything from negotiating better terms to refining a process or reviewing data and identifying redundancies to be more efficient and less costly. Example: "Reduced cost of goods 13% by negotiating better terms with suppliers."

6. Include the times when you increased profits, revenue, or sales. Similar to cutting costs, employers love seeing that you had a hand in directly increasing profits, revenue, or sales. You could do this in several ways, like coming up with a successful new product, initiating an engaging marketing campaign, or increasing personal sales. Example: Launched new SMS campaign, increasing lead generation by 15% and sales conversations by 10%.   

7. List the times you’ve trained others. Employers also love to see when you’ve trained employees, as it shows that you were trusted and knowledgeable. Don’t forget to quantify the number of employees you trained. Example: "Trained 23 new employees on various functions and processes, including [whatever you trained them in]."

8. Think of times you showed leadership or took on a leadership role.
   Being asked to lead in any way is always an achievement. You weren’t chosen to be in charge of something because of poor performance but because you’re extremely skilled and knowledgeable on something while also being able to motivate and inspire. If it was something off the job, like an association, for example, you can include it in the Interests and Hobbies section on your resume. Example: "President of the ABC Association of Engineers since 2014."

9. Consider presentations or public speaking engagements. Were you asked to speak or do a presentation at any time? If so, this is an excellent achievement to include on your resume. It shows leadership and confidence, which can help make you stand out over the other candidates. Example: "Selected to present new software in front of 3,500 people in attendance at the annual shareholders meeting."

10. Ask others for input. Another great way to come up with a list of accomplishments for your resume is to ask your friends, former colleagues, and supervisors what comes to mind when they think of your accomplishments. Of course, you can ask current colleagues and supervisors, though it might be risky to let your current colleagues and managers know you’re updating your resume to look for a new job, so use discretion. 

11. Review past performance reviews. Past performance reviews can offer a lot of great insight into your work accomplishments. Go back over any you might still have access to and make note of the achievements that stand out and are fair game to include on your resume.

Expert tip: It’s wise to keep a copy of your past performance reviews to help you craft and update your resume throughout your career.  

How do I decide which accomplishments to include?

As you get the creative juices flowing, you might be surprised at how many accomplishments you’re able to come up with! Once you have that amazing list in hand, the question then becomes, how do you decide which ones to include?

First, if all of the accomplishments you came up with are relevant, add value, and showcase your skills and abilities, you could include all of them on your resume, assuming the following holds true:

1. You have room for them. If you’ve come up with so many accomplishments that it makes your resume spill over onto a third page, then you’ll need to decide which ones to include.

2. You apply proper resume standards in terms of how many bullet points to use for each position held. Generally speaking, you should aim for four to six bullet points per position listed. Any more than that can sometimes be overwhelming for the reader.  

3. The items on your list don’t fall under any of the resume accomplishments to avoid including, covered in the next section. 

When you need to narrow down your list — which is a great challenge to have — here are some tips to help:

• Ask yourself, “Which accomplishments are most relevant and show the most impact or value added?” 

• Begin with accomplishments related to your professional experience. These will be most relevant to employers. In other words, accomplishments described in your Resume Summary and Work History sections are the ones the hiring managers will look at first. 

• If you have more than six bullet points for each position you list, review the job description for each application, and keep the four to six that are most relevant to each job and what the employer is seeking.

• Remove any accomplishment that is more than 10 to 15 years old. Your resume should only include relevant experience spanning the past 10 to 15 years.

• Accomplishments related to optional resume sections, like volunteer experience and hobbies and interests, should be included only if there is room on your resume to do so and they are professionally relevant to the job you’re trying to land. 

Resume accomplishments to avoid including

Not all accomplishments are created equal or have a place on your resume. Now that you have a list of tips and ideas to help you write and come up with your own resume accomplishments, along with examples, let’s take a look at the types of accomplishments you should avoid including. 

Avoid including accomplishments that are:

• Related to controversial subjects. Use caution when including achievements related to what can be perceived as controversial topics, like religion or politics, unless you’re applying to a job where those types of accomplishments would be relevant. That’s not to say you can’t include such accomplishments when applying for other fields; you just want to be mindful. When in doubt, get a second opinion.

• Exaggerations. It can be tempting to embellish accomplishments on a resume. However, it can get you in trouble if you do. When the employer asks you for specifics or checks references with a past employer and finds out what you shared isn’t true, it could cost you the job. Be honest, and don’t fabricate any of the details you include on your resume.

• Irrelevant to the job. Your resume should only include information relevant to the job. Leave off any achievement that isn’t relevant or doesn’t add value to your resume.

• Too personal. Some accomplishments might be too personal or give away too many personal details about yourself or your life. For example, if you list an accomplishment linked to being a parent, it will highlight the fact that you have children. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The point is that you want to be mindful of the type of personally identifiable information highlighted beyond your ability to do the job well.

• Linked to proprietary information. Ensure that any accomplishments you include on your resume are safe to include in terms of proprietary or sensitive information linked to past employment. If sharing an accomplishment would go against an NDA you signed, for example, you wouldn’t want to include it unless you can do it in a generalized way that doesn’t violate the agreement. The last thing you want to do is end up in a troubling situation with a past employer or raise a red flag to a prospective employer. 

Accomplishments on a resume help you stand out

Resume accomplishments, when prioritized over responsibilities, can significantly enhance your chances of securing an interview. The insights, suggestions, and illustrations provided above should assist you in formulating impactful resume achievements while also presenting them in a manner that leaves a favorable impression. Remember, quantifying your results with numbers on your resume is the most effective way to position yourself as an “achiever” rather than a mere “doer.”

Good luck with your job search!

Does your resume showcase your accomplishments in the best possible light to grab the attention of employers and land you interviews? Not sure? You can submit it for a free resume review to find out! 

This article was originally written by Leo Bastone. It’s been updated by Ronda Suder.

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