15.9. Achievement Section. (Required)

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For each position you’ve held, the achievement statements you create will reflect your level of ability in a particular skill. When you create your achievement statements, being able to label each with the corresponding skill, will make it easier to choose which statements to include when you want to provide specific examples of certain skills.

What are achievement statements.

Achievement statements describe the skills you have, the positive effect applying those skills had, and how they can be applied to the open position. When constructing accomplishment statements, write them with a focus on the open position, this will make it easier for the reader to understand how you will be able to help them, and address the needs they have.

Each achievement statement will need to provide the reader with 3 pieces of information; what you did (the action), to what or whom (the focus) and the positive affect you achieved (the result).

What you did – describes the action you took, such as “negotiated”, “designed”, “constructed” etc. Use the strongest action verb you can as this will catch the readers’ attention.

To what or who – you may also add in here the context to the statement, for example time or money constraints especially if it helps to highlight the level of skill you’re describing, and can directly speak to the needs of the open position.

The result – what impact did you achieve. The strongest achievement statements quantify the impact. Choose either percentages or numbers depending on which one makes the result more powerful.

Statements which include a number quantifying the result are more powerful than statements without them. For more senior positions all your achievement statements need to be quantified.

Creating achievement statements.

There are essentially three steps to creating achievement statements;

Step 1.
Identify events or times when you have been successful;
Job Description: Ideally the description of the open position or any job description that matches the type of position you interested in.
Performance Reviews: If your previous organizations conducted regular performance feedback reviews or appraisals, look through your previous assessments.
Feedback: Can you recall times when you received positive feedback or praise about some work you did? Capture what the feedback focused on and the context in which it was given.
Think back: Look back at times when you have felt good about an event or action.

Step 2.
Review each situation and capture the problem, the context or situation, the actions you took the skills used and the outcome achieved.

Step 3.
Take each statement and refine it, keep tweaking and polishing each statement until you get the final version. Make sure your sentences start with a powerful action verb.

You’ll often find that you used more than one skill in each event or situation. Consider creating additional statements that display each skill and save them. You can decide later whether to include in a resume.

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