Accomplishments for a Resume: Key Achievements & Awards
Accomplishments for a Resume: Key Achievements & Awards
On your resume, listing your skills, duties, and responsibilities won’t do. To land that dream gig, you need to highlight your achievements. Here’s how.
Listing professional achievements and accomplishments on a resume is the #1 key to making every employer want to hire you.
Most candidates only outline duties and responsibilities.
But, hey—the employer knows what you did. That’s contained in your job title.
If you add achievements, accomplishments, and awards to your resume, you’ll show how well you performed your job. You’ll be well ahead of your competition.
For some reason, though, it’s hard for most people to describe their achievements. Luckily, you came to the right place to learn all you need to know.
This guide will show you:
99+ examples of achievements to put on resumes (you’ll find examples for your profession!)
How to list achievements and awards on a resume to impress every recruiter.
How to come up with great, quantified accomplishments for a resume even if you think you have none.
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Right below, you’ll see a list of ideas for achievements and accomplishments for a resume.
If you want to see typical achievements for specific professions and industries, just scroll further or use the table of contents below to go to a list of sample accomplishments related to your job.
Looking for academic achievements and awards? Give these a read:
List of Accomplishments and 60 Examples of Career Achievements for a Resume by Industry
We've decided to give you the meat right away.
Here are the types of professional wins that recruiters expect to see on your resume to consider you as an attractive candidate:
List of Professional Achievements for Resume
Revenue or sales you increased for the company
Money you saved for the company
Time you saved for the company
Problems you identified and solved
Ideas or innovations you introduced
Procedures or systems you developed, implemented, or optimized
Special projects you worked on
Industry awards you won (i.e., Best Digital Marketing Campaign Award)
Work-related awards you won (i.e., Salesperson of The Year)
Promotions to higher positions you got in your job
Additional training you completed and professional certifications you received
Funding, grants or scholarships you received
Popular publications, reports or presentations you (co)authored
Blogging and influencing on social media
Media coverage you gained for the company
Other accomplishments such as volunteering or achievements in sports
As you can see, there are multiple types of accomplishments you can put on a resume. To learn more about listing particular types of achievements, switch over to one of our dedicated guides.
Now, let’s see how that works in practice on resumes for different professions.
You can copy the examples below, paste them into your resume and make minor adjustments: enter your actual metrics and KPIs and list projects and initiatives in which you participated.
Keep reading if you want to know exactlywhere and how to put achievements and awards on a resume to always grab the attention of decision-makers.
Plus, we’ll share some great hacks for coming up with achievements if you think you have none—I guarantee you actually do!
Resume Accomplishments for Different Professions
Administrative Jobs
Administrative Assistant
Managed busy schedules and travel plans of 3+ corporate executives while performing general office administration duties.
Saved $3,000 a year in office supplies after negotiating a new deal with the current supplier.
Commended for creating the in-house newsletter to communicate management’s vision. Reduced email back-and-forth by 20%.
Managed multiple PR and marketing annual budgets ranging from $5,000 to $300,000.
Lead a project team in designing and implementing a comprehensive social media relations strategy for a new line of lifestyle products—grew Facebook fan base from 0 to 19,000 in 4 months.
According to a Talentnow study, almost 73% of employers struggle to find relevant candidates for the positions they’re trying to fill.
That means, to outperform other candidates, your resume needs to show you’ll do well in this particular job.
The best way to do it?
Highlight your past professional achievements and communicate that you’ll be able to translate them into similar success in your future position.
You want the hiring manager to read your resume and say:
“Right, so this candidate succeeded with a project X. It’s similar to the project Y at my company—I’m sure she’ll do well. Let’s interview this one!”
Do it this way:
1. Include Your Achievements in the Work Experience Section
The work experience section of your resume is the most important part.
Employers read resumes pretty much for the sole purpose of reviewing your work history.
That’s why you need to pack this part full of standout achievements. Here’s how:
In every entry in your work experience section, use up to 6 bullet points. Focus only on what’s relevant for the position.
Begin every bullet with an action verb. Instead of writing you were “responsible for the design of a new payment system,” say “designed a new payment system.” This way, you’ll come across as an achiever not just a doer.
To make every sentence count, focus on the business outcome of your actions.
Quantify your achievements whenever possible. Numbers pop!
At the bottom of each work experience entry, add a section entitled “Key Achievement.” Describe the proudest, most impressive professional win.
To make sure your best accomplishments grab recruiters’ attention, use the PAR (Problem-Action-Result) formula.
Let’s say there’s a job for a Software Engineer and one of the key requirements is proficiency in testing automation.
A resume achievement example relevant to the position could read:
Key achievement: Optimized the testing process by developing an AI-based test automation tool; reduced testing time by 55%.
Problem? Testing took too long.
Action? New test automation tool.
Result? Testing time cut by 55%.
You can use this method to make every responsibility on your resume sound like an accomplishment.
2. Quantify Your Results by Frequency, Scale, or Range
I know what you might be thinking.
“Putting quantified achievements on a resume is great, but I just don’t work with hard numbers. I have no data to support the quality of my work.”
Don’t worry! There are a few proven methods to plug in numbers to your resume accomplishments.
1. Frequency
How many times a week/month were you able to do certain tasks?
How much work were you able to complete within a given period of time?
How long and how complicated were the projects you’ve completed?
Your resume should answer all such questions!
See these examples of achievements based on frequency:
Resolved 50+ user tickets daily.
Designed social media posts: 3 per week on LinkedIn, 3 per week on Facebook, 6 per week on Instagram. Reached 30,000 customers/week with a monthly social media budget of $300.
Coordinated an internal newsletter sent every day to 60+ coworkers.
2. Scale
How many people were there on your team?
How big were the budgets you’ve handled?
How many countries/regions was the company active in?
Again, look at how it works in practice in these scale-informed accomplishments:
Collaborated with cross-functional project teams of 24 colleagues from sales and operations departments to provide tailor-made customer experience to the clients.
Trained and mentored 8 associate-level employees to reach a specialist position.
Spearheaded the branding consistency across 8 national markets.
3. Range
If you can’t figure out the exact numbers, it’s okay to estimate, as long as the range you enter is well-informed (because you will be asked about the reasoning behind your estimate during a job interview.)
Example:
Negotiated with office supplies vendors, saving the company $12,000–$17,000 annually.
So—
You’ve learned how to put achievements in the work experience section and how to quantify them to make a big impression. But there’s still a bit more you need to know…
3. Make Your Best Accomplishments Prominent in the Resume Profile
A resume profile, also called a resume heading statement, is that short paragraph at the very top of your resume, just below your contact information.
It’s the very first thing your future employers will put their eyes on. It has to work like a trailer for the rest of your resume.
Grab their attention, and they will read on. Fail to make a good first impression—you’re not getting the job.
It’s best to write your resume profile after you’ve written the rest of your resume.
Once you’re done with your work history, re-read all the entries and identify the best bits.
By “best” I mean 1) the most impressive and 2) only those that match the requirements of the job you’re applying for.
Make sure to include all those glowing accomplishments in your resume profile.
See this example for reference:
Skilled customer service representative with 6+ years of experience. Received 98% favorable customer ratings at Second Level Industries. Customer retention for regular callers was 41% above the company average. Seeking to use proven service and sales skills to grow customer loyalty for Verizon.
For more information on how to pick the best achievements for your resume profile, see our dedicated guides.
Not much experience? You’ll need a career objective. We have a dedicated guide loaded with examples here: 99+ Career Objectives for All Jobs
If you’re a very experienced candidate with many relevant accomplishments, you might consider writing an extensive summary of qualifications—a heading statement used in “combination” resumes.
So, you’ve learned all you need to know about including accomplishments in the work history section and your resume heading statement.
What about a separate section for awards?
3
How to List Awards on a Resume
Amongst your achievements, professional awards hold a special place.
An award indicates that you’re mastery has been recognized by others. Metrics, professional results, and KPIs are great for measuring performance, but still—
Awards are the most prestigious achievements to include in a resume.
Here’s how to list them:
1. Include your awards won while working in a given position in your job description.
An award always warrants a mention in a given work history entry.
It’s best to put it in a “Key achievements” or “Most relevant accomplishments” subsection.
See this example.
Awards on a Resume: Work History Section
[Position Name]
[Company]
[Dates worked]
Devised and implemented a comprehensive campaign combining sampling, media events, social media, and viral marketing.
Helped secure a three-year exclusive deal with a key client.
[…]
Key achievement: Engaged customers in a viral video campaign based on homemade videos featuring the brand. Received an SCM Campaign of the Year award in 2013.
But—
To make the awards more prominent on your resume, go the extra mile:
2. Put your awards in a separate “Awards” resume section
List all your relevant industry awards.
Use the reverse-chronological order: the most recent awards go first, followed by previous ones.
Include only the name of the award and the year you got it.
List international, national, and internal company awards.
Have a look:
Awards Section on a Resume: Sample
AWARDS
2018, Bronze Clio Digital/Mobile & Social Media Technique Award
2013, Smith & Company Marketing Campaign of the Year
2008, JonesFlores Innovation Accomplishment Award
And there you have it. Everything you need to know about how to put achievements, accomplishments, and professional awards on a resume.
Let’s wrap up.
Key Takeaway
Here’s how to highlight your achievements on a resume:
Include your achievements in the work experience section, where you describe past jobs.
Quantify your best results whenever possible.
Include a sneak-peek of your best accomplishments in your resume summary statement or a career objective.
Make a separate section for your awards only. List them in the reverse-chronological order.
Thanks for reading my article! Now I’d love to hear from you. Do you have any questions about how to include achievements on a resume? Still find it hard to describe your accomplishments? Drop me a line in the comments, I’ll be happy to help.
Michael, a Certified Professional Résumé Writer (CPRW) is a career writer and the newsletter coordinator at Zety. Apart from sharing his own resume-writing expertise, Michael reaches out to recruitment and hiring gurus to help you learn the most effective strategies for managing your career.
Not sure what your resume should look like to impress recruiters and land you that dream interview? You’ve come to the right place to find out. See for yourself.