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A
Welcome to Career Tools. This is Sarah and I'm Mark. Today's podcast, how to create resume accomplishments with examples, Part one of one.
B
As always, our content has been crafted by humans and only humans, and we're now certified by Proudly Human. The questions this cast answers are, how do I write accomplishments on my resume? How do I fit my accomplishments onto one line of my resume? And what does verb result method mean?
A
If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening. Your resume is often the first impression you're ever going to make, and most people have no idea how much it's costing them. The Manager Tools resume workbook gives you step by step guidance, expert strategies, and the exact framework to make your resume work for you. Available exclusively to our licensees. Unlock it today at manager-tools.com forward/licenses. All right, so Mark, we have got many podcasts on resumes and we've got the resume workbook. And we still get questions all of the time about how to create effective accomplishments for one's resume. And we kind of started this conversation when we were on our most recent topic, the career management document. Right? We kind of talked about the. The idea itself. But in today's cast, we're actually going to walk folks through how to create accomplishments for their resume, and then we're going to also provide several examples of what were bad turned great accomplishments so that folks have a template and head start in terms of creating their own accomplishments for their resumes as well.
B
Okay, here's our outline. We're going to use a specific method. It's called Verb result method. We're going to teach you that number two, make a note of your accomplishments regularly. That's where Sarah was referring to the cmd, the career management document. And then three, we'll give you some examples. Okay, so verb result method, by far the most powerful method of writing accomplishments is to follow this verb result method formula. And before we go and describe it in detail, we want to address the concern that you may have about having 20 or 30 accomplishments on your resume, which are all formulated the same way.
A
Now folks, one reason we're not concerned about that is that your resume, it's not literature. In creative writing class in school, we were all taught not to have consecutive sentences which begin the exact same way. For example, three or four sentences that all started with I would earn a bad grade. But it's because literature needs to be interesting and structural. Variety in sentences is one way of making your writing more interesting.
B
Yeah, but resumes don't have to be interesting in the Same way that normal prose writing would be. They have to be factual. They have to be action provoking in the sense that the hiring manager reads it and she's impressed and invites you to an interview. The whole purpose of a resume is to get you an interview, but they don't have to be great literature. And in fact, when, when I think about managers reading resumes or screeners reading resumes, knowing the structure, knowing what the structure is, makes it much easier for them to figure out how good you are. Whereas if you start getting creative or different, they have to fight through your style in order to figure out what you want. Sentence variety isn't the measure of a good resume. Ease of capture of ideas on the part of the, the reader is.
A
And we've talked about that kind of concept in some of our other resume guidance in that people ought to be able to tell at a glance, looking at your resume, that it is a res. We want to make it as easy as humanly possible for the person consuming the contents and following the same structure makes it easy for them to consume the contents and thus, I mean, just gives you an overall better score. Even if the contents aren't as impressive, the ease of reading them will make them. So to the, the individual who's, who's screening resumes in this case, yeah. And folks, the other reason that we're not very concerned is that on a resume, 20 bulleted accomplishments, all beginning with the quantified results, is just incredibly powerful. The cumulative effect of I did this and I did this and I did this and I did this can be underestimated. Until you really see a good resume following this structure, the impact of, of the multitude of accomplishment bullets, all that start with what you've done in a powerful way that the impact is, is worth more than the sum of its parts.
B
Yeah. So what that means is as we said, we're going to create, we recommend you create every accomplishment the same way. Verb, result, method.
A
So folks, consider this. Achieved $1,000,000 in sales of product X in fiscal year 10 by targeting high net worth individuals versus targeted high net worth individuals to achieve $1,000,000 sales of product X in FY10. So you can kind of hear the difference, right? A lot of us are thinking, so what? When you're not even through the high net worth, it's like you're starting a story and individuals lean back and they're like, okay, we don't want a story, we don't want a story.
B
This is your entire life on one page of paper. You do not have Time for a story.
A
Exactly.
B
You don't. So if you start telling us a story, we're going to be, oh, this isn't good.
A
Yeah, it's almost like zoning out. It's almost like da da, da, da da. Like it's a. It lacks energy, it lacks enthusiasm strictly in just the way it's written and the way it makes the reader feel versus when we say achieved $1 million in sales, immediately the reader is. They're locked in. They're like, ooh, that's interesting. I want to know more. We don't want to stop reading that bullet because it's immediately engaging. It immediately draws in an interest area.
B
Yeah. And that's the first two parts, the verb and the result. But you can't stop then without describing the method. If you start an accomplishment with Transfer 200,000 users from in house to cloud servers with no data or service loss, the next question you're going to get is how that you're going to leave them hanging a little bit. Your resume needs to answer that question. Not completely. You don't have to tell the whole story about the six month project, but you have to answer it to some extent. And that's why the verb method or the verb result method way lends itself to having interviewers ask you questions which you have already studied for. Because you wouldn't put a bullet on your accomplishment bullet on your resume if you weren't going to be able to back it up with a significant accomplishment answer. For the hiring manager, there are two likely outcomes. One, the method will be something with which the hiring manager is familiar. Okay. And therefore they'll know you can fit into their team. Two, you'll have come up with something new which they'll want to talk to you about. Both those outcomes are good for you. Leaving too many questions about how on your resume by essentially leaving the how off your resume leaves the reader doubting that what you claim is true and doubt means you're not going to be invited to interviews.
A
That's exactly it. Whereas folks, on the other hand, you don't want to give all of the information. I mean, if your accomplishments go over the line and when I say over the line, I mean beyond just a single line of text.
B
Yeah. There's a courage return there at the end.
A
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So if your accomplishments go over the line, you probably have too much information and you're therefore not leaving anything to be discussed in the interview. I mean, it's kind of a delicate balance between I've not given them enough to get me in for an interview and I've given so much, they don't need to interview me. They, they know all of it. So if the hiring manager thinks I know everything I need to know, you're unlikely to be invited in for an interview because they don't need to interview you. They know everything they need to know.
B
Yeah. I'll add to that that the verb result method, it allows you to compact. You could still be long if you want to be, but it allows you to compact an accomplishment into one line. And I got to tell you folks, that one line is very important and it is the rare accomplishment bullet that should run over to a second line. And the reason for that is that second line is related to the first one, but you are spending space. That could be a completely different accomplishment. I have probably edited 20,000 resumes in my career. Some for friends, a lot for clients, and so on. And the first thing I do is wordsmith it toward verb result method. And I can almost always get it within one line. And I'm amazed at the number of people who want to tell a story and they take three or four lines for one accomplishment. And of course, the danger of that is the perception is that was your only accomplishment. Because if you've had a 20 year career, four lines for one accomplishment, four lines is about all you have room for, depending upon the number of jobs you've had.
A
Yeah, exactly. One line.
B
Yeah. Next, we want to make a note of our accomplishments regularly. Basically, in order to write a decent accomplishment, you have to be paying attention to what you're doing and how well you're doing it when you're doing it. Okay? You, five years later, you trying to remember how you did it is going to be dicey, sketchy. Right? We've said over and over again in cast, update your career management document regularly.
A
And folks, what that means is at least in part include those numbers. I mean, if you've written 4,000 lines of code this month and had no bugs, write that down. There's no way that you're going to be able to remember those numbers in six months from now, never mind 10 years from now, and the aggregation over that period becomes much, much harder. You're going to lose accomplishments. You're. They're not going to be as punchy, they're not going to be as interesting to the reader if there are, there are no numbers, there are no facts behind it, and there's no way you're going to remember those in the future.
B
Yeah. And we say in our career management Document guidance. Just take notes of times when you got ahead in your project and what caused it. You might not deliver ahead overall, but you might want to pick out that part of the project as an accomplishment later. And what I tell people is when you're taking notes and meetings and so on, or you think of something, just have a sticky note or have your notebook or whatever and write CMD charting my delta, circle it, underline it, whatever. And then use that sticky note if you want. Or tear a piece of paper off and you've got your printed CMD somewhere in your desk and you just slap it on the front of it and that's your reminder. That's all you need to do. You don't have to go back and revisit your CMD and type it in. You just have to remind yourself of what it was. So when you take time. Once a quarter, isn't it once a quarter? Right?
A
Yes. Once a quarter.
B
You recommend once a quarter. You sit down with it. Yeah. So you'll have a bunch of sticky notes that you'll be able to turn into accomplishments.
A
Yeah. Compile. Exactly, folks. Take notes of revenue increases, cost decreases, the number of customers that you gained through the activities that you fulfilled in that quarter. Anything that can be measured. Anything that be measured. Take note of the improvement in your resume will be many times greater than the amount of work it takes to jot these things down and compile them into your career management document quarterly. Never mind the time and effort you'll save in the long run, because when it comes time to create a resume, it doesn't take you hours and hours and hours and hours because you have to dissect in your mind the work that you recently did because you didn't write it down or collect it in some useful way for later use.
B
Yeah. Also, don't worry if you're thinking, gosh, if I do that all the time once a month or whatever, I'll have too many accomplishments. Yes, you will. You'll have a career management document that might be four pages long. Okay. But that's okay, because what you'll do for each resume you create for each different potential company is you'll probably have a base resume, but you'll want to customize your resume depending upon the kind of job. If you're in technology, there could be a different path for a technology role or a manager role, and you'll be pulling various bullets out of your CMD for different resumes in different ways. You'll use different bullets in those different resumes and look, as we mentioned in our Career Documentation podcast, any of those emails you're getting to thank you for a job well done, take note of those too. You could shove them into a notebook. You could have a folder called Career Management Document and end up with a bunch of loose stuff. Put enough information on it so that you have the context right so you can use it. But it makes it way easier. It'll make that CMD appointment you have at the end of the quarter, maybe half an hour long. And they're a good reminder of a job well done. An email for instance. And so it's likely, probably, hopefully an accomplishment as well. It may not turn out to be one. But don't be too judgy on yourself. Don't be too hard on yourself when you're capturing stuff that you did well.
A
Absolutely. And actually Mark, when you started talking, it occurred to me a point of confusion that I think our listeners might have when they go to look for the podcast around or about Career Management Document. Folks, the podcast where we talk about the creation of and the the keeping up to date of your career Management document is actually called Systematic Career Documentation.
B
That's right, yeah, yeah.
A
In terms of the links that it's
B
not called Career Management.
A
Exactly. That's right, exactly. It's this. Yeah. Systematic Career Documentation Podcast. So folks, if you're wondering where is that? How do I find it? If you search on our website in the search bar, you'll find it anyway. But at the bottom of this podcast, the podcast that we're referring to or referencing here, one called Systematic Career Documentation, do you ever leave a conversation with your boss feeling like you said the right things but still didn't connect? Communication is what the listener does. And the Effective Communicator conference teaches you exactly how to reach the people who matter the most in your career. During this training, you're going to learn a lot about yourself and more importantly, you'll learn how to identify others communication behaviors to to start to bridge that gap in communication. Be seen as someone who knows how to communicate in person. And virtual options are both available. We have conferences coming up in Chicago and the Washington D.C. area and we'd love to see you there. Learn more@manager-tools.com ecc so that kind of takes us through the creation of the accomplishments. Now Mark, let's go through some examples for folks in an effort to help them take their own accomplishments and turn them into this verb result method format. So we've got a list here of bad examples which we're going to Repair for you. And this list of bad examples just really came from a Google search of resumes. They're just typical, really, of what we see all the time. And with a few tweaks, you're going to see how much stronger these examples are with, with the adjustment to this format.
B
How much better they become.
A
Yeah, exactly. More compelling, more interesting to the, to the reader. That is, in this case, when it comes to selling you and getting you in there for an interview.
B
Yeah. So here's example 1. The role is a senior technical consultant. And this is the achievement that was put down on the resume. Define slash, create slash, track slash. Analyze testing plans for new software and updates. Full stop. Provide third level customer support. Full stop. Reviewer of all external communications. Now, folks, this one is bad for a host of reasons. First of all, it's not quantified. Okay. There are at least three accomplishments included here. I would argue we're being way too generous by calling those accomplishments. I think those are just job responsibilities. But we can take this person's customer support responsibilities as the example. Customer support staff are usually measured in terms of their success in resolving complaints within a certain timeline. Assuming this individual kept records, a better accomplishment would be achieved 100% complaint resolution within target times by developing standard query resolution flowcharts. Wendy and I collaborated on writing these show notes, but I think Wendy is being far too generous. I would read that achievement as not an achievement. And that's a classic miss. People do this all the time. There have been so many resumes, millions, billions of them, that have been created in the last 20 years where people don't know what the resume is supposed to be and they don't know responsibilities go in a prose paragraph and accomplishments go with bullets and they just start putting their responsibilities in bullets. And I mean, it's an immediate killer for me if you put one of your responsibilities as a bullet. Because that's what people who got fired from the job have to do to show that they have bullets. They just fake it that Russ responsibilities are in fact accomplishments. The fact that in this case they don't give a quantified accomplishment immediately makes people like me, experienced resume readers, believe they didn't succeed against their target. Because if they had, they would have included the data.
A
Absolutely. Okay, that takes us to our next example. And the role for this one is a network administrator. So the achievement on it is migrated company from on premises data centers to aws. And I say to aws, it's actually a little arrow. Exactly. Exactly. Now folks, this accomplishment is way too short. And it doesn't include information that we want to know. A migration is a project. There are three questions that are asked about every project. Was it on time, was it on budget and was it on scope? And if you don't include the information that you achieved the delivery of your project within those incredibly important project parameters, the reader is going to assume that you didn't. Because I mean, if you had delivered on time, on budget and in scope, you would have included that. So any project accomplishment needs to specify whether or not on time, on budget and on scope were achieved. So for example, manage on premises data center to AWS migration on time, on budget and in scope using PMI principles. Now if you had space including information about the size of the project, that would make this accomplishment even better. It could sound like managed 4000 person slash $4 million budget, on premises data center to AWS migration on time, on budget and in scope using PMI principles. But again, we're having to now here make up the actual data around the success factors because we don't know that. Just like the person who would read and determine whether or not they wanted to bring this person in for an interview.
B
Right.
A
Wouldn't know that a lot. The power of the metrics.
B
Yeah. When we first started recommending the career management document, which Wendy and I had come up crying on our own years ago and had been recommending it, there were people who said, yeah, I sit down every year and I go over all the things I've done in a year. And both Wendy and I laughed and said, there's no way that people can remember an entire year a year later.
A
No.
B
Well, the reason they did it in a year was because of their review. They were thinking about the review and trying to come up with accomplishments that they could write into their performance review. And people struggled with it and they didn't know what they were supposed to be doing. I said, well, the answer is you've got to do a quarterly review and you've got to be capturing things along the way. In fact, we tell people, when you write your review, your self review, or when you're preparing for your review, you should be going through your resume or not. Sorry, not your resume, your email. You should be looking through email, just scanning through email for stuff. Okay, here's example number three. This role is a project management consultant. Here's the achievement. Consolidated 25 million in accounts receivable data from disparate systems into a centralized database, including automated backup, configuration, rollback procedures and data integrity validation prior to production. Cutover okay, you might be thinking, well, that sounds kind of like what you guys suggest. Yes, but this is way too long. This is three lines on my show notes. Okay. At 10 point type or 12 point type. Right. Any accomplishment which is made up of multiple sentences is too long. Okay. Your resume needs to demonstrate you can communicate clearly and succinctly. Multiple sentence accomplishments do not achieve this. Second, the other big flaw here is this accomplishment tells you the aim of the project, but it doesn't tell you if any of those things were achieved, received. It doesn't. We know what this person should have been doing, but we don't know if they actually did it, which therefore means it must have been a failure in some part. So let's try this. Delivered consolidation of 25 million dollar in accounts receivable data into a centralized database. Applying additive linear models for capacity planning and delivering on time and on budget with full backup rollback integrity validation. Now, you might say that's better, but it doesn't sound. Any shorter and you'd be right. So now we change it TO this delivered $25 million data point consolidation on time and budget, including 100% of integrity requirements. Capacity plan with additive linear model. Now we're down to a line and a half. I could still probably get that down to a line, but it would take a little bit of work. Okay, now if you read this one, deliver 25 million data point consultant data point consolidation on time and budget. There's the key. Including 100% integrity requirements. There's another key, capacity plan with additive linear model. Do you want to know more about the person who can achieve that kind of consolidation? Yes, and that's how accomplishments are supposed to work.
A
Yeah, that's exactly it. All right, so example number four. The role on this one is a beta program manager and the achievement says fielded. Most of the communication addressed to the beta group, both internal and external. Now, folks, there are two really big things wrong with this accomplishment. First, it's incredibly vague. I mean, what does fielded mean in this context? I mean, the mailman threw letters through the door and he caught them because that's fielded. Or does it mean that each one of those was answered personally? And those might be two extremes, but there's all sorts of reasonable suppositions between those two, and we have no idea which is true. What does most mean? Does it mean like 99% or like 51%? Because both are a true reflection of most. So it's just super vague.
B
Yeah, and 99 is a win and 51 is a fail.
A
Yeah, exactly. And folks, those are the kinds of questions that are going to be in the mind of the person, again, who's trying to determine whether or not you're worthy of coming in for an interview. Now, the second pro or second problem here is this person is a beta program manager and this bullet is talking about dealing with communication. Yes, communication is important, but it's not important for a program manager to be dealing with all of it. He needs to be having strategic conversations with sponsors and customers and department heads. This accomplishment implies that he was really down in the weeds with everything, and that makes him a bad program manager. He. Your accomplishments also need to reflect the level of your role, not just your success doing the things you did during that role. So a better achievement bullet here would be achieved 100% turnaround of all communication within deadline by managing goals and workload of a team of three people, for example. Because that way it clearly communicates that this individual wasn't the bottleneck by which all communications in terms of the project had to be run through. Because that would be in itself a negative.
B
Stupid.
A
Stupid. Exactly.
B
And I would argue, folks, we're trying to make that one better, but I still wouldn't have the one we put down on that we ultimately recommend on my resume. I don't think it's. It's good enough. I think you're searching for something. I think most interviewers would think that communication is simply something you have to do as a function of your job. Now, if you want to write something down which shows how many communications they got and it was a million a day or something. Okay, different discussion. But this feels to me, even if we make it as good as it possibly can be, it feels like somebody fishing around for something they did that was an accomplishment but didn't really matter.
A
Yeah, agreed. Surely you did something more important than that. Yes.
B
Then communicate. Yeah. All right, example 5. This is for a web developer from a web developer resume. And the achievement he or she lists is worked on websites, promotions and email newsletters for Nestle, Nutrition, Power Bar, Priya and other sites. Again, this is a responsibility bullet, which there should be no responsibility bullets, only accomplishment bullets. Responsibilities go in the prose paragraph up at the administrative portion of the job description. Okay, it's describing activity rather than accomplishment. But it also falls into another trap that is common in resume where the author has worked with a well known company. The customer is not important. Generally, folks, what the customer thought of your work is important. Okay, you're assuming that people will draw the conclusion that, hey, you work on stuff for Nestle. I mean that, you know, that's a big. It's a historic company. They're very large and very successful and very long lived. Great. Except that you can't tell whether they hated your work or not based on this comment.
A
Yeah, just name dropping now.
B
Yeah. Once the project was finished, they said we're never working with you again. You failed. If it's not clear on your resume that you didn't fail, the reader will assume that you failed. I want to say that again, if it's not clear on your resume that you didn't fail, the reader will assume you failed. That's a really good way to think about it. Better would be achieved 100% on time on budget and customer satisfaction by developing 75 page website for Nestle or achieved $4,000 additional follow on revenue by developing 75 page website for nestle. Evidence, folks, is so much more powerful than name dropping.
A
Absolutely. Okay, that takes me to the next example. Number six. And this is for a language coordinator. So the achievement that we've got here is became conversant with the different aspects in the insurance domain through working in the discipline with various insurance organizations and folks learning something for anyone who's spent a great deal of time doing so is an accomplishment. It's just not an accomplishment that needs to be on your resume. And as we said earlier, all companies really care about are the revenue and the costs of what the work that you did resulted in. This accomplishment is not tied back to a reduction in cost for the company that this person worked for. And because of that, it's really irrelevant. I mean, we can see the logic. I learned this and it's incredibly important to know this and I know it's valuable. I mean, yes, but don't stop there. I mean, educate us a little bit. Why is it valuable? So for example, a better accomplishment would be reduce labor costs $40,000 by developing insurance knowledge and averting the need for an additional hire.
B
Oh, that's sharp. I like that one.
A
So folks, in other words, my knowledge meant, or gaining that knowledge meant I could do two jobs. We didn't have to hire another person because I was now capable of doing both of those things. And yeah, exactly. What's not to like about that? For a hiring manager who doesn't have enough staff, which is a lot of them, or enough budget, which is basically all of them, why wouldn't they be interested in that aspect of your skill set?
B
Yeah, love that. Okay, next1. Number 7. The role is a Java contractor and the achievement is member of design and development teams to create J2EE app to replace legacy wholesale floor plan application. Wow. Okay. I don't want to say nothing's right about this, but I generally. My first thought when I listened to that is everything's wrong. So I guess if everything's wrong, then nothing's right. As far as resumes are concerned, there is a huge trend toward ever more team oriented language. Right. Member of a team that did this or that. But folks, everyone recognizes that without other people, our jobs could not be done. Marketing needs production and production needs marketing. All true, but your resume is about you. It's about the difference you can make to our company. What the team achieved matters much less in this context, way less than in any other. What did you do? Is the question. What was your contribution? What? What would have happened if you had not been there? What would have not happened if you had not been there? Okay, so you can't use this team thing. I'm a member of a team. And by the way, it didn't say that they actually finished creating the app or that they replaced the legacy wholesale floor plan application. And that's one of those ones, by the way, where I would look at it and go, boy, I would only mention that if I was talking to somebody who knew what a legacy wholesale floor plan application was. And it doesn't come to my mind very easily. And I'm fairly well knowledgeable about most things, so I'm guessing that's a niche and it would only apply to people in that niche, which would limit your resume's viability. There. Now something better. Designed and developed 15 to 20 Project J2EE modules with less than 10% bugs by following best practice standards. Now we're talking specifically about something you did and we're talking about verb design and developed result, less than 10% bugs and then method by following best practice standards.
A
Yeah, love that one. All right, that takes us to example number eight, our last example, which is for a role. The role being concept artist and the achievement here. Concept to implementation of big event feature bonus.
B
Wait, are you sure you're reading that right?
A
Yeah.
B
You're sure?
A
Yes, I'm certain.
B
Concept to implementation of big event feature bonus.
A
Yeah.
B
Oh, my.
A
Yeah, folks, it's way too short. Like, way too short.
B
Yeah.
A
It falls into the trap of trying to do too much with too few words.
B
Yeah, I will say, Sarah, that now, now that I've thought through the logic, which is tortured, I get that. This person had a feature bonus applied to the big event in some way, and he or she led it from concept all the way to implementation. I get it now. And I also get that if you get it, you would say, well, that sounds interesting. It was a big event. This is a bonus feature. He let it, she let it all the way through. I might be interested. Unfortunately, it just fails in terms of resume language and so on. Right. I mean, it's so short that I can't tell whether I'm interested in it or not.
A
Yeah, and that goes back to what we were talking at the beginning, Mark. I mean, at a glance, say this individual that's, that's assessing, that's doing the screening, which is quite likely, is in hr. And that individual isn't an expert in that area, which, let's be clear folks, they're not. You still need to be compelling to that individual who is doing the screening but has no in depth knowledge of the job itself. So the fact that we had to go through so many machinations because we're not experts in this area, so many machinations to understand why and how that could even be impactful is part of the problem. I mean, we're basically like the HR who read that and we're like, okay, that doesn't really mean anything to me. So folks, remember that it needs to be carte blanche impactful to everybody reading it. And this one just doesn't do it. And when you create your career management document, folks, you want to have as many accomplishments as possible so that when you choose which ones you're going to use for your resume, you can make sure the ones you choose are impactful. I mean, when you're able to choose, you can decide which ones fit the role that you're applying for, or for the hiring manager or for the organization or the type of work involved. You could have, I mean, as many as 20 accomplishments around this topic of concept to implementation of big event feature bonus by simply just breaking that down. So for example, one of the accomplishments that was part of that larger accomplishment could be in a better way, reduced project cost by $4,000 by achieving agreement for developed concept for big event feature bonus ahead of schedule or achieved on time delivery of concept drawings by managing workload of three artists.
B
Okay, yeah.
A
Or, or I should say not even or. And contributed to ahead of schedule development by working with developers during concept drawing phase and increased revenue estimated 5% based on marketing split testing by developing six additional features and so on with that one short accomplishment.
B
Yeah, they're trying to. You could blow it up and boil the earth.
A
Exactly. We need to just we need to actually break it down. And then you can choose whichever of the accomplishments associated with that larger accomplishment we want to put on our resume for whatever reason.
B
Yeah. So hopefully all those examples were helpful to you folks. Of course, we're happy to look at your resumes if you like. Now, let me sum up. Accomplishments, folks, are the engine, the power of your resume. And without strong accomplishments, you're unlikely to get an interview. The difference between a weak resume and a strong one usually isn't the career. It's whether the person knew how to write about it and how to make it come alive. Duties Tell a hiring manager what you were supposed to do. Responsibilities, accomplishments. Tell them what you actually delivered and what you're capable of delivering for them. They're going to close their eyes and see if they can picture you doing what they have ready for you to do. And your accomplishments will tell them how well you're able to do those kinds of things. So our guidance Follow the formula, verb, result, method and you'll avoid a lot of the traps we shared with you in this podcast. And if you can answer, quote, what changed because I was there, it's then that you have your accomplishment.
A
Yeah, that was a good one. Thank you, Mark.
B
My pleasure.
A
Thanks so much for joining us, folks. We hope this one helped you. Now help us help others and tell your friends. And of course, follow rate and review our podcast. And remember, five stars only. Please.
Date: May 21, 2026
Hosts: Sarah [A] & Mark [B]
This episode focuses on the crucial skill of creating powerful resume accomplishments. Sarah and Mark guide listeners through the “Verb Result Method,” a structured approach for writing succinct, impactful accomplishment bullets, and offer multiple before-and-after examples. The conversation tackles common mistakes and provides practical tips for ongoing career documentation.
“Duties tell a hiring manager what you were supposed to do. Responsibilities, accomplishments tell them what you actually delivered and what you’re capable of delivering for them.” — Mark [37:46]
[01:51] - [05:21]
What is it?
The “Verb Result Method” structures each accomplishment as:
Verb + Result + Method
Key points:
“Sentence variety isn’t the measure of a good resume. Ease of capture of ideas on the part of the reader is.”
— Mark [03:37]
"The cumulative effect of ‘I did this’... all that start with what you’ve done in a powerful way... is worth more than the sum of its parts.”
— Sarah [04:30]
[05:21] - [08:54]
Start with impact—lead with results, not stories or background context.
Tell “just enough” so hiring managers want to ask more in the interview.
Overly detailed bullets waste space and can obscure your achievements.
“If your accomplishments go over the line... you probably have too much information and you’re therefore not leaving anything to be discussed in the interview.”
— Sarah [08:18]
“The verb result method... allows you to compact an accomplishment into one line.”
— Mark [08:54]
[10:00] - [13:00]
Track your accomplishments regularly (ideally quarterly) in a Career Management Document (CMD).
Capture numbers and specifics as they happen; you won’t remember exact metrics years later.
Save thank-you emails, performance praise, or any quantifiable achievement as later resume fodder.
More accomplishments provide greater flexibility to tailor each resume.
“Any of those emails you’re getting to thank you for a job well done, take note of those too... But don’t be too judgy on yourself when you’re capturing stuff that you did well.”
— Mark [13:32]
For tips on career documentation, refer to their episode “Systematic Career Documentation” [14:24].
[16:37] - [37:15]
Original: “Define/create/track/analyze testing plans for new software and updates. Provide third level customer support. Reviewer of all external communications.”
Verb Result Method:
“Achieved 100% complaint resolution within target times by developing standard query resolution flowcharts.”
“If you had, they would have included the data.” — Mark [18:16]
Original: “Migrated company from on premises data centers to AWS.”
Verb Result Method:
“Managed on-premises data center to AWS migration on time, on budget and in scope using PMI principles.”
Even better with numbers:
“Managed 4000 person/$4 million budget, on-premises data center to AWS migration on time, on budget and in scope using PMI principles.”
"If you don't include the information that you achieved the delivery of your project within those... parameters, the reader is going to assume that you didn't."
— Sarah [19:44]
Original: “Consolidated 25 million in accounts receivable data... including automated backup... and data integrity validation prior to production cutover.”
Verb Result Method (revised):
“Delivered $25 million data point consolidation on time and budget, including 100% of integrity requirements; capacity plan with additive linear model.”
Original: “Fielded most of the communication addressed to the beta group, both internal and external.”
Verb Result Method:
“Achieved 100% turnaround of all communication within deadline by managing goals and workload of a team of three people.”
Original: “Worked on websites, promotions and email newsletters for Nestle, Nutrition, Power Bar, Priya and other sites.”
Verb Result Method:
“Achieved 100% on time, on budget, and customer satisfaction by developing 75-page website for Nestle.”
Or
“Achieved $4,000 additional follow-on revenue by developing 75-page website for Nestle.”
"If it's not clear on your resume that you didn't fail, the reader will assume you failed. That's a really good way to think about it." — Mark [28:50]
Original: “Became conversant with the different aspects in the insurance domain through working in the discipline with various insurance organizations.”
Verb Result Method:
“Reduced labor costs $40,000 by developing insurance knowledge and averting the need for an additional hire.”
Original: “Member of design and development teams to create J2EE app to replace legacy wholesale floor plan application.”
Verb Result Method:
“Designed and developed 15–20 Project J2EE modules with less than 10% bugs by following best practice standards.”
Original: “Concept to implementation of big event feature bonus.”
Verb Result Method (broken down):
Tip: Break down large, vague accomplishments into several specific, measurable bullets.
Use the Verb Result Method for all accomplishment bullets—keep them concise, quantified, and one line.
Document your work routinely (ideally quarterly) with specific metrics and context to make resume writing easier and more impactful.
Tailor your resume using your career management document to highlight the most relevant accomplishments for each role.
Never rely on responsibilities or vague language; every bullet should showcase results and your unique contribution.
“If you can answer, ‘What changed because I was there?’ it’s then that you have your accomplishment.” — Mark [38:34]
A strong resume isn’t about the variety of your sentence structure, but about the clarity, specificity, and impact of your accomplishments. Track your wins regularly, practice the Verb Result Method, and make every bullet count.