One major section of the resume that has continuously presented a HUGE problem to jobseekers is the professional work experience.
In this section, many jobseekers only include general information about their jobs; something like:
- Responsible for keeping records of goods sold
- Updated core articles and existing web contents on a regular basis
- Taught physics to the senior secondary school students of the school
For the record, the bullet points above are from an actual resume of mine when I was applying for jobs after my BSc.
And that resume DID NOT get any interviews; it was a total failure.
Why? Because the bullet points were just stating what I was responsible for, or what my boss assigned me to do.
What recruiters/ hiring managers expect from you in this section is to showcase your achievements on the job instead of just telling them what the job is about.
They need evidence that you have the skills and qualities they are looking for, and that’s exactly what you should give them.
THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN TASKS AND ACHIEVEMENTS
A task is a piece of work done as part of one’s duties; it is a regular activity that you undertake.
An achievement, on the other hand, is an exceptional result of performing a particular task. For clarity, consider the following:
Task: Managed social media accounts for the company.
Achievement: Increased social media engagement by 50% within three months through strategic content planning and audience targeting.
Task: Conducted market research to identify customer preferences.
Achievement: Utilized market research findings to recommend and launch a new product that resulted in a 15% increase in sales within six months.
In many resumes I have seen the focus is far too strongly on tasks rather than achievements.
Usually, my clients would be like, “but all I do in my job is routine activities.”
And I would be like, “it is either you don’t recognize your own achievements, or you are not good at what you do.”
HOW TO SELL YOUR EXPERIENCE TO RECRUITERS
Whenever you want to present your work experience on your resume, ALWAYS GIVE THE RECRUITER SOMETHING TO HOLD ON TO.
Don’t just tell the recruiter you taught students of a particular class how to write different types of essays – show him the result of having taught those students, give the recruiter something with which he can measure your impact.
Don’t just tell him you managed 15 teachers as the principal of a school – demonstrate how managing those teachers improved their productivity.
It’s all about providing details of what you have done, with a focus on results.
Read that again!
For recruiters and hiring managers, your results are evidence that you have what they are looking for.
And what are they looking for?
Generally, every organization wants you to either:
➔ Increase their revenue,
➔ Reduce their expenses, or
➔ Improve their productivity
If you think about it, all responsibilities detailed in job descriptions ultimately lead to the three points above.
So, when writing about any accomplishment, dig for the numbers. Write about how you increased revenue, how you saved cost and time, and/or how you improved productivity. Write about the big clients you served. If the numbers are confidential, speak in terms of percentages instead of currency amounts. If client names are confidential, describe the companies in terms of size and industry. There is always a way to quantify your achievements!
Let’s walk through an example together.
We are going to assume you are applying for the role of a teacher.
To create compelling bullet points, the first thing to do is to list out the duties of a teacher (as seen in the job description). If you don’t have a job description, then think about what your duties would be, or just search the internet for a teacher’s job description.
Since we have no job description, we’ll use the duties below. I was once a teacher, so I know pretty well what my duties were... Yes, thank you 😌😀.
To my students:
- Help them pass their exams
- Offer solicited and unsolicited guidance
- Help them maintain concentration in class
- Help them become better versions of themselves, and so on.
To my colleagues:
- Design curriculums together
- Share ideas, resources and instructional strategies
- Provide supports to one another
- Help one another improve, and so on.
To the school:
- Ensure productivity
- Bring in more customers (students)
- Help the school maintain high standards.
The next thing to do is to list out the professional qualities/ skills of a teacher. You can also find this in the job description. But since we don’t have a job description, here are a few we can leverage. You may also search the internet for a list:
- Subject matter expertise
- Effective communication skills
- Adaptability and flexibility in approach to teaching
- Patience and empathy
- Classroom management
- Collaboration and teamwork
- Creativity
- Strong work ethics
- Professionalism, and what have you.
Now, ask yourself, “How can I rewrite the duties above to showcase achievements, while taking into consideration the required skills/ professional qualities?”
Think about what you have achieved previously in this role, or what you think you would be able to achieve in this role, or what you think would be a nice achievement to flaunt in the faces of the hiring manager or
recruiter.
Here’s what I have come up with:
- Achieved 100% classroom engagement by switching between different teaching methodologies to cater to the needs of different students.
The above bullet point shows the following skills: Classroom management, effective communication skill, adaptability and flexibility, creativity.
- Enabled 80% of students to achieve an ‘A’ in English Language in their WASSCE – the remaining students achieving either a ‘B’ or a ‘C’.
The above bullet point shows the following skills: Subject matter expertise, effective communication skill.
- Generated about ₦1,000,000 revenue in a single term after gaining 10 new students for the school through word-of-mouth advertisement.
The above bullet point shows professionalism.
- Achieved 20% boost in academic performance of 5 students with learning difficulties by voluntarily implementing a personalized after-school tutorial to cater to their individual needs.
The above bullet point shows the following skills: Patience and empathy, strong work ethics, professionalism, subject matter expertise, effective communication.
Although we’ll stop here, there are countless bullet points we could have created from the little analysis we did above.
In the above bullets, we showed the recruiter we are capable of generating money for the school and also increase the school's productivity.
Coming up with cool bullet points is not as difficult as everyone makes it to be. Follow the way we have done it above to create yours. BE REAL! That’s the only way to be different from others, even if you fabricate some of your bullet points. USE YOUR OWN WORDS AND THINK YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE.