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HBCU Careers Magazine
50
The “ABCs” of Résumé Accomplishments
By: Alexandra Arrington, LPCA, NCC, DCC
Career Counselor, Consultant and Coach
A good meal is even more enjoyable when there is
care and attention placed into the details of making
it. Everyone needs to eat, yet when choice isn’t
particularly limited, why not have the best? Taking the
necessary steps to become an employer’s candidate of
choice involved submitting a résumé reflecting detailed
preparation.
Properly attending to the accomplishment statement,
which is a bulleted phrase that details work experience,
is an important part of preparing the résumé.
Unfortunately, a common practice in providing this information is merely to list responsibilities,
daily duties or tasks. This typically involves dragging a sentence froma job description and plopping
it haphazardly onto a résumé. There are flaws with that approach in that job responsibilities fail
to do the following:
• Reflect the actual work that is done day-to-day
• Advertise the uniqueness of the person performing the tasks
• Define the degree of impact a person has on the department/company
Having well-crafted statements that capture achievement and clarify the employee’s value takes
the savvy individual straight to the head of the class. How, then, are grade “A" statements written
that truly reflect accomplishment? There first must be a shift in how work is considered. This shift
involves one’s prescribed duties becoming much more than a "to do" list, including:
• Learning, with vigor, the business’ or department’s “pain” (i.e. the biggest or most
significant problems or opportunities)
• Looking, with intention, for ways to apply individual strengths to the role, both intra-
and interpersonally
• Tracking, with diligence, the applications of strengths and the outcomes