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Simple Tips For Remembering Your Career
Accomplishments
Nimish Thakkar, MS, MBA, CCMC,
CPRW, SaiCareers.com,
New York
December 19, 2005
Not having enough accomplishments is a cause of major concern for most job seekers. The following strategies have
worked with my clients, and I hope that you will benefit from them as
well.
Reflection and questioning
Start with your most
recent position and try to remember every milestone achieved, every
positive comment that came your way, or every result that got your boss
-- or your team -- excited. Why were you encouraged? How did your work
benefit the company or project? Did you change something? Cut costs?
Improve Efficiency? A project manager, for example, could think about
the following questions: What was the size of my last project (budget,
number of people, etc.)? Did I finish my work ahead of deadline? If
yes, by how many days, weeks, or months? Did I exceed any benchmarks?
How was my performance in comparison to my peers? How much money was
saved? Don’t be in a hurry. Just try to remember your performance
one month at a time. Make plenty of notes.
Performance reviews and
recommendation letters
Your performance reviews
-- if accessible -- can also be a valuable source of information. If
you don’t have
reference letters, ask
your favorite supervisors or peers to write some for you. Some of these
letters may provide material that you could use on your resume.
Friends and colleagues
You can also ask your
friends and colleagues to help you in this process. If you worked on a
team, your team members may be a valuable resource. Be careful, though;
don’t make them suspicious about your [job
search] intentions.
CAR stories
A very effective method
that career professionals use is the CAR format, where the acronym CAR
stands for Challenges, Actions, and Results. List your employment in
chronological order (starting with most recent first) and prepare a
list of challenges you faced in each position. What actions did you
take to overcome these challenges? What results did your actions
produce? How did it impact the company? Try to write at least 3–5
CAR stories for each position you have held. (Do take a look at our
CAR stories worksheet.)
With careful planning and serious preparation your
resume
could become your gateway to success.
Also Read:
Career Accomplishments: The Key To A
Powerful Resume
CAR Stories Worksheet
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