Responsibilities and achievements in the resume: what should be indicated?

“Responsibilities and achievements” is one of the most relevant sections of the resume; employers pay special attention to it. It is on its content and presentation style that the final decision on hiring the applicant for work depends.

Personnel employees are meticulously and attentively looking for employees who can bring the business they have started to a successful ending, optimize work processes in a quality and time-saving manner, and steadily increase the company's profit. Simply, clearly and in a businesslike way, reflecting your production achievements in your previous places of employment in the resume, you solve the task of hiring a new job by more than 50%.

A professional function is a relatively autonomous component of professional activity in the field of a specific technological process. Job responsibilities - a set of specific actions of the employee at the workplace, used to achieve production strategic and tactical goals. In other words, duties (as concrete actions) are called upon to ensure the performance of functions.

Achievements include specific work results that go beyond the scope of a specialist’s routine. This is exactly what they are proud of, which is especially appreciated by any employer.

The main task of the section is to interest the employer, to show him his potential usefulness for solving specific production tasks.

Before you start writing this relevant section, we recommend that you carefully read the primary information about the organization. It should be clear about the mission of the enterprise, its strategic and tactical goals, production capabilities, as well as features and corporate traditions. This will help to present themselves to the employer in a favorable light, to ensure victory in the resume competition.

The information presented in the section should be presented briefly, clearly, in a business-competent style and meet a number of criteria:

• measurability, that is, to have quantitative characteristics;
• concreteness versus generalization;
• impressiveness (indicativeness);
• relevance, that is, the degree of conformity of the position for which you are applying.

There are two main categories of achievements recommended for description in a resume: personal, which you are proud of regardless of your profession; professional, directly related to the results of your work in the workplace. For example, significant sales successes or realtor successes should be described. Both categories should be specific and reflected in measurable quantities.

The personal qualities and achievements indicated in the resume do not have to be “sharpened” for your professional activity. These are not work-related successes that characterize you as a growing, creative and developing person in life. This includes sports achievements that show the level of your good health.

Typical personal qualities such as sociability, determination and others, employers often simply ignore, because they indicate a lack of creativity in the applicant. More productive qualities are, for example, fast learning, a sense of new, the ability to quickly navigate and learn new information, analyze it and correctly prioritize activities, propose and quickly implement rationalization proposals, etc.

For young professionals who do not have professional achievements, it is important to focus on personal traits and skills, such as ability to cope with stress, sociability, desire to work in a team, punctuality, attentiveness, self-discipline, etc., that is, those qualities that will provide error-free, correct and fast execution of work in a short time.

The most important, key career achievements in your career will help your employer to appreciate your business skills.

1. They will significantly increase the pride of a potential boss, since the acquisition of a true professional will be consistent with his strategic intentions.
2. Successful examples of job achievements will fully show your determination and responsibility in your work.
3. The future leader will quickly understand the degree of dynamics of your growth as a professional. Based on these examples, such qualities as industriousness, professionalism, and the level of desire for further self-development will be evaluated.

Therefore, information about your professional achievements, that is, significant results and knowledge related to work, should be brought to the potential leader, focusing on:

• embodied, successfully implemented by you projects;
• improving financial and other indicators;
• achieved production goals;
• results that exceeded past victories, including the victories of colleagues.

It is easy to discover your personal successes by answering yourself the following questions:

• What benefits have I been able to bring to the company while working in it?
• What useful skills, abilities and experience have I gained?
• What important project was implemented with my successful participation?
• Have they entrusted me with a job that goes beyond my direct responsibilities?
• Why did they thank me at my previous job?
• What are my specific successes noted by management?
• What did I manage to change for the better (introduce, improve) in my previous position?

When applying for a managerial position, achievements must correspond to the manager’s work: the ability to make strategic decisions, managerial experience, planning, the practice of replacing a manager’s place, etc. If you plan to get to the place of a linear specialist, then it is important to comply with the level: implemented, increased, increased, etc.

In large system organizations with a well-branched structure, as a rule, departments are organized with a significant number of office managers providing the necessary workflow. Such employees specialize in work of an extremely narrow focus, registering, for example, exclusively incoming or outgoing documentation. It is rather difficult to state their achievements for such workers.

To correctly fill out the section, we recommend that you follow a number of rules.

1. Purpose and focus of the presentation. The main task is to clearly show the potential manager that it is you who are the best job seeker who can bring maximum benefit to the company. It makes no sense to detail your functional responsibilities at your previous place of work if you have decided to change the profile of activity. You should also not focus on skills that may not be useful in a new job. It is more profitable to dwell on the aspects useful for the new employer in their professional activities. So, in the resume of a specialist-economist, a job seeker for a financial director, it is useful to dwell not on the calculation of production costs or labor standards, but reflect on issues related to financial control and analysis, its management activities.
2. It’s useful to match your main professional achievements with specific places of work. Typically, applicants indicate in a resume 2-3 previous firms, giving a short list of their achievements.
3. It is important not to state the topic in general terms, but to highlight specific (digital) parameters of activity. For example, to reflect the manager’s success in working with the client contingent, instead of the banal “attracted customers”, note “replenished the client base with 25 new customers in 2 months.”
4. Conciseness and clarity of presentation. A clear mistake will be to copy the entire job description, it is enough to dwell on key points. This will allow you to correctly show the range of responsibilities and will not tire the employer when reading a resume. For example, it would be quite enough for procurement managers to note: choosing profitable partners, considering and evaluating various price options, and documenting transactions.
5. It is useful to devote about 50% of the document to achievements, and to disclose responsibilities in the rest. At the same time, each of them should be balanced by the corresponding results of activity, which will introduce you as a worthwhile employee. For sales managers, it will look something like this:
   • in the field of expanding the client base, he increased the number of profitable partners by one and a half times due to the introduction of an orderly and new discount system;
   • To increase sales, he organized an additional channel, which provided an increase in sales volumes of goods by 30%.
6. The effective use of verbs allows you to focus on the fact that your personal efforts have yielded a specific positive result. The most vividly and in a business-like activity is described precisely with the help of verbs of a perfect form (created, performed, etc.) - they “shade” precisely merit. Verbs of an imperfect form (answered, participated, etc.) to a greater extent reflect duties and functions, but not achievements. For example, instead of a typical statement of the fact - “the cost of production has been reduced”, it is better to write - “reduced the cost of production by 25%. In addition, it is worth noting the ways and means of this reduction.

Avoid writing on-duty phrases like “timely and high-quality management tasks”, “I haven’t received any complaints during the work,” or “quit due to an unprofessional assessment by the management and the staff’s conflict”, because the employee who does nothing does not make mistakes .

Your resume will not make a proper impression on the personnel officer and will be ineffective if it is written:

• vague, long and reasoning sentences;
• verbose sentences inconvenient for reading;
• with negative judgments of any kind;
• with the content of passive forms, for example, phrases such as “responsible for implementation”, “found application”, which should be replaced by active verb forms “implemented”, “effectively applied”, etc.

Here are some useful examples of achievements for several different professions.

Accountant - A responsible position requiring great accuracy, experience and pragmatism. Here, successful examples of professional achievements can be:

• automation of accounting calculations and subsequent optimization of the staff;
• successful test with multiple tax audits;
• full or partial updating of computer software of the company;
• writing a number of publications for specialized accounting periodicals;
• the presence of a certificate or diploma confirming the qualification of "chief accountant";
• number of worthy external audits passed.

Teacher:

• the fact of receiving an honorary diploma for labor merits in pedagogical work;
• the approximate implementation of a number of open lessons;
• participation in significant all-Russian conferences on pedagogy;
• the creation and ongoing maintenance of training circles;
• organization and holding of conferences, webinars on the exchange of experience in pedagogical work.

Doctor. Here, each area of ​​medicine has its own production features and nuances, for the ENT doctor, for example:

• conducted more than 40 successful operations;
• published about 150 articles for the journal "Health";
• He wrote and defended the scientific work "The latest methods of treating scleromas," for which he received a Ph.D.
• over the past 4 years, trained 40 interns;
• held 11 webinars on otorhinolaryngology;
• participated in 14 conferences, 5 of which are international;
• invented and patented a new drug or device.

For sales manager:

• managed to increase sales by 35%;
• in six months, 45 new customers were attracted;
• in 1.5 years, he selected and trained 12 new employees;
• Over the past 3 years, he organized 35 promotions and discount programs, thanks to which he attracted 200 new regular customers.

The head. Leaders are conditionally divided into 2 groups: small and large scale. In the first group - administrators, supervisors, managers and others; in the second - directors, general directors, presidents of companies, etc. Examples of professional achievements in the resume for the head of the logistics structural unit:

• in 1 year, developed 4 schemes of new routes for the rapid delivery of goods;
• automated the inventory system, due to which the process was reduced from 6 hours to 2 hours;
• updated the software, due to which the speed of preparation of standard documents was reduced by 20%.

Lawyer:

• systematized and optimized the procedure for coordination of documentation, which increased the speed of preparation of the applicant material and gave significant competitive advantages;
• ensured the conclusion of 22 agreements with reputable foreign companies for the supply and installation of the latest production equipment;
• prepared and made adjustments to sectoral legislative documents, which allowed to optimize the procedure and terms for the liquidation of legal entities;
• accompanied a number of significant commercial projects on combining a number of companies, working with intellectual property, registration and registration of patents;
• provided support for a number of independent expert assessments of credit risks of large financial projects (from 1.5 billion rubles).

Engineer:

• successfully implemented the technical side of the launch of a new production line at the factory, reducing the assembly process to 3 weeks;
• ensured an increase in productivity of the machine park by 25% due to the optimal load distribution and the formation of a convenient operating mode;
• developed and ensured the smooth operation of the latest production waste processing line;
• improved test machines, which provided an increase in productivity by 22%.

Shop assistant:

• introduced original sales methods, which allowed to increase the customer base by 17%;
• introduced new ways to stimulate sales, raising the average check by 20% in 4 months;
• attracted to cooperation 7 new partner customers through the use of a special loyalty program;
• increased the growth dynamics of the customer base by 18% by activating the system of promoting goods on the Internet;
• with the participation of top managers developed a sales system that provided an increase in the number of applications by 30%;
• reduced the processing time of applicant documents from 4 to 3 days, halving the number of failures.