Gather your career highlights (and your lowlights too) - they may hold the key to your next career move.
In this article, we'll explore how your achievements can guide your career, show you how to identify and define them, and demonstrate how to use them in your resume.
What are some of your defining career moments? Hidden in these you’ll find career gold: your achievements, and unearthing them can help your career to flourish.
Here are five ways your achievements can support your career:
Career discovery: achievements can help you identify new career themes by identifying what has been rewarding in the past. Sometimes it takes unpacking them to see a pattern forming and that pattern might take you down a whole new path of career exploration.
Skills and strengths: our achievements often include a bunch of things we learned to do. You can identify a whole range of skills and knowledge by looking through your achievements for clues. These skills and strengths are great resume material too.
Creating career stories: there’s a story attached to every achievement, and getting familiar with these stories will make you much more comfortable sharing them with others.
Resume optimisation: stating the obvious here but your work history on your resume shouldn't just include your responsibilities in each role, it should showcase your achievements too. It’s handy to have them ready to weave into your resume and they are also great for cover letters and selection criteria too!
Interview preparation: a job interview is a great opportunity to highlight your achievements and you don't want to be scratching your head in the moment wondering what you have to talk about. Stacking up your achievements gives you an archive to draw from.
How do you figure out what your achievements are?
For many of us, it can be hard to look back and see where we’ve done really well and we struggle to identify these wins in ourselves. In others? Sure. But our own achievements can be a little more elusive, particularly if we have a tendency towards ye olde Imposter Syndrome.
Achievements are often marked by the following signposts:
a sense of satisfaction or accomplishment
a phase of deep flow and fulfilment
Curiosity and imagination
pride and determination
Joy and excitement
But I don't have any achievements!
Yes, you do! Let’s look at some distinguishing features of achievements - you’re going to recognise some of these in the things you’ve done:
Created (I built this thing)
Fixed (I made this work again)
Improved (I made this better)
Excelled (I did this really well)
Navigated (I did something difficult)
Negotiated (I got a great outcome)
Commended (I won an award)
Innovated (I did something new)
Led (I guided a team or project to success)
Transformed (I made a significant change happen)
Rescued (I prevented or solved a critical issue)
Mentored (I developed others)
Influenced (I persuaded others or drove a decision)
Endured (I stayed committed through challenges)
Streamlined (I made something more efficient)
Expanded (I grew a market, team, or product)
Adapted (I successfully navigated change)
Tip: Don’t just go searching through your career for moments when everything went well, many of our achievements come from difficult times.
How should I present achievements in my resume?
You’re aiming to be economical with words on your resume so try to summarise each achievement in one sentence covering off your challenge, the action you took and the result you got. Quantifiable achievements are great (e.g. increased sales by 25%) but if you don't have data look for other ways to show the result - perhaps you got some great feedback.
If it’s easy for you to see the achievements of others, perhaps they can help you spot yours. That means it’s time to survey your people to see what they say your career achievements are.
Because it’s literally what we get paid to do, career counsellors can help you draw out career achievements and put them in the spotlight where they belong. We’re here if you need us.
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