The following is great resume advice from my friend, Rosa Vargas. Not only is she my friend, this is her second post on this blog and she is a certified resume writer and can be found tweeting great advice as @resumeservice on twitter. You can find her blog and her resume writing business on http://www.creatingprints.com/

You have no idea how often one of my clients has said, “I have no accomplishments to give you — I just did my job.” You also have no idea how many times they were wrong!

Some of you may not have extraordinary accomplishments to include on your resume; Let’s be honest and admit that some of you did not achieve employee of the year; did not become top five in your region in sales; did not devise a strategy that captured millions for the company (stick with me. I am going to a happy place soon), and did not become the youngest executive in your company. Yes, some of you “just” did your job. However, you executed your accountabilities well and consistently! Am I right? If you performed your job correctly, you are a key part of a functioning team. You are also valuable to your co-workers and you are an essential contributor to your company’s success – you just have to put it in writing!

Now, this post does not apply to everyone and I am not promoting that you underachieve—my point is that in order to have leaders we need to have team members that are cooperative and willing to follow. So, listen up! I am going to teach you how to highlight the value you bring your team in your supporting role. You will see how you can take a “just-my-job” statements and transform it into a hire-me achievements.

Examples of Just-My-Job Statements into Accomplishments

1.          Entrusted with additional and more imperative accountabilities. (Before: I received sort of a promotion. They gave me more responsibilities that they did not give everyone else, but did not pay me for it.)

2.         Earned a salary increase for consistently meeting all expectations and repeatedly earning exceptional performance reviews. (Before: They gave me a raise because I did my job correctly and performance reviews were up. I always did well.)

3.         Alleviated under staffing by working extra hours during holiday and peak times. (Before: My boss always asked me to work longer hours when things were really busy. She did not offer overtime to many others.)

4.         Communicated with superiors and customers in a friendly and positive-oriented manner, adding to a cohesive work environment. (Before: I got along well with colleagues, customers, and bosses. I was never a troublemaker.)

5.         Contributed to team efficiency by training and guiding new hires. (Before: I often helped new employees. They thanked me but there was no additional pay as I did not have to develop a training program. It was more side by side training)

6.         Offered colleagues words of encouragement, nurturing company culture. (Before: everyone always came to me with a gripe about our leaders. I usually calmed them down.)

7.         Selected to help at another location or department. (Before: They often sent me to another location to help because I was a good employee)

8.         Developed a reputation for consistency, reliability, and dedicated work ethic. (Before: My boss told me that everyone should be as easy to manage as I am. That she appreciates my work ethic)

9.         Sustained workflow by maintaining an impeccable attendance record. (Before: I was always on time to work and never called out.)

10.       Saved the company time /money by preventing costly errors. (Before: One thing I always did is I made sure I did things correctly and did now screw up.)

11.        Aided coworkers by stepping up and working their shift, helping preserve a working schedule. (Before: My colleagues often asked me to work for them when they could not come to work and the schedule had already been established. It would have gotten them in trouble and our whole department schedule would have been out of balance.)

Of course, the above are concise and few examples of how you can transform an ordinary-sounding sentence or comment into an accomplishment / achievement. These achievement statements are not 100% ready to become resume statements–a bit more polishing is in order. But, I hoped to quickly demonstrate the spin strategy. Now that you have been introduced to a different perspective, do you still think you just performed your job?

Tags: Career advice, Resume advice

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Career advice, Resume advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.