Identifying Your Achievements

You'll need to start listing your achievements, including your entire educational and work history. Write down every experience that brought you recognition from others or made you stand out. Think back over your first job experiences - you may have contributed to a school project or had a summer job. Continue your list by working through each job you have had since you began your professional career.

If you do not have specific recent work experience, use coursework, club participation, community service, association activities and part-time work as a means of demonstrating your achievements.

You should include instances in which:

• You developed an idea.
• You contributed to a decision or a change.
• You saved time and/or money.
• You created or built something.
• You reduced costs or increased sales or profit.
• You demonstrated leadership in the face of challenge.
• You followed instructions and realized a goal.
• You identified a need and resolved it.
• You received an award or special commendation.
• You solved a problem or handled an emergency situation.

Now you should describe your achievement in a little more detail, using the following guide:

1. What was the problem?
2. What did you do?
3. What skills did you use?
4. What was the benefit for you?
5. What was the benefit for your company?

Assign numbers or values to the achievement and state explicitly what happened as a result of your action. If efficiency improved by 35% or costs came down by 30%, or you saved $2 million over four years, then say so!

Here are some examples:

• Successfully recovered $4 million in overdue accounts.
• Found new sources for raw materials, saving 21% on purchased materials amounting to more than $850,000 the first year.
• Added a computerised database for employee records, providing better controls with fewer personnel.
• Designed a marketing plan that increased sales from $3 million to $7 million in 18 months.
• Expanded the company's customer base by 64% and increased sales by 175% to more than $5 million.
• Reduced audit expenses by 29% through better record keeping.
• Launched a company newsletter, which improved morale.
• Negotiated a line of credit one point lower than former lending rates for an annual saving of $350,000.
• Created and introduced a management review system as a basis for a new bonus scheme, resulting in a 19% profit increase.
• Reduced the work force by 12% with no loss in production.
• Processed more than 41 orders per day, resulting in a daily increase of reported sales of $82,000.
• Increased sales and profits by 18% and 29%, respectively, over two years.
• Hired and trained an entire sales team that achieved its goal of $2 million sales in the first year.
• Initiated a safety program that reduced accidents by 12% in the first 3 months.