Tips for Listing Your Achievements on a Resume

Achievements for Resume

If you want your resume to stand out, you need to make sure that you’re showcasing all the most interesting parts of your work history. This is where achievements come into play, showing recruiters how you can utilize your best skills. However, the exact mechanics of showing off your resume accomplishments may not always be clear. Here’s what you need to know about highlighting your professional achievements on a resume.

What Are Achievements on a Resume?

Achievements are a list of the best things you’ve accomplished in your career or education history. If you’re a recent graduate, your accomplishments will likely mostly be academic achievements. If you’ve had a few years of experience, your achievements are going to be professional achievements. Achievements can include a wide variety of things, including this potential list:

• Increased sales
• Raised certain metrics
• Improved customer retention
• Improved customer conversion rate
• Raised customer satisfaction
• Onboarded new employees
• Academic honors

Achievements can have awards attached to them, but not always. Sometimes, resume achievements are just goals that you were able to reach. Either way, there should be accomplishments that connect with the new job you want.

How to Choose Achievements for a Resume

How do you determine the relevant accomplishments to add to the achievements section of your resume? There are a number of important elements.

1. Numbers will always be better than no numbers. “Increased sales” doesn’t look remotely as good as “Increased sales by 32%.” Your list of accomplishments should include at least a few metrics that showcase exactly how your achievements played out.

2. Connect your achievement to how it benefited the company. You should avoid listing regular job duties as achievements. List things that you went above and beyond to find, and they’re typically things your past jobs benefited from, like an increased satisfaction rating.

3. Highlight what you did to get the achievement. Your accomplishment statements need to highlight what you did—not what co-workers did, not what your manager did, but what you did. Your resume examples need to show how your specific job responsibilities were what led to your list of achievements.

Where To Include Your Achievements on a Resume

There are many places you can include your achievements on your resume. Here are a few of these options:

• In your work experience section
• In your skills section
• In an achievements section, if you have one
• In your resume summary
• In your cover letter

If you have a lot of achievements, you can add them all in a separate section. However, it’s most common to see your accomplishments in your work history, presented in bullet points underneath each job title that you’ve previously held. Often, job seekers will list a single “Key Achievement” underneath each previous job, giving a potential employer an easy way to see their best accomplishments.

When you use a resume builder, it will often prompt you for these achievements as you’re filling out your job responsibilities. This can be a great addition to your resume writing, so make sure you’re prepared with accomplishment examples that really showcase your achievements. If you are seeking a resume format that emphasizes academic achievements, you can also check our Harvard resume guide.