What catches a recruiter’s attention is describing our knowledge, skills and experiences in the lens of achievements rather than simply listing responsibilities and duties.
Why?
Recruiters probably see hundreds of resumes a day for a few positions. They know what your duties/responsibilities generally are just by looking at your title. If you are in sales, you probably do some sort of prospecting, closing, renewal responsibilities and you probably write some report (don’t we all?). They aren’t interested in that, especially in the 7 seconds that recruiters spend on average looking at a resume.
Don’t waste those precious few seconds on writing things recruiters already know and expect from your job title!
Instead, recruiters want to know your achievements. In sales, for example, that would be: How much revenue do you generate? How many new clients did you have? How much did you exceed your targets? By what %? Etc. To simplify it in basic terms, more numbers.
Example (responsibility): Lead all marketing campaigns for the digital marketing team.
Achievement Example (achievement): Led 5 marketing campaigns in FY2020 that generated $1.2 million in revenue.
Example (common requirement in job postings): Strong verbal and written communication
Better Example (aggregate achievement): 1250+ client meetings in a 10 year career that includes pitching, closing and portfolio rebalancing
Writing through the lens of Achievements
Here are some basics that can get you started. Please read through this in preparation of our first meeting so that we hit the ground running. Think about what achievements are relevant for your profession. A good start is to think about the metrics or KPIs you are measured on at your current job or former jobs. Bonus points: start rewriting a few bullets in your resume with this lens as practice and I can go over with you on the call.
Results
Revenue in $: Led a team of 5 that generated $1 million in FY2020.
% efficiency: Implemented a 3 step ticketing system that increased efficiency by 5% and saved $250K a year.
Cost reduction in $ or %: Led 4 stage digital transformation project that saved $1M annually.
Audience engagement metrics: Created a 3 segment CRM strategy that increased clickthrough rate by 10% and opens by 25%.
Traffic: Fixed 40+ bugs on website portal that resulted in a 15% increase in traffic.
Size/scope
How many people on the team?
What was the size of the budget?
How big was the client (in $ or as % of overall revenue)?
How many clients?. If you can't name clients you can get around it by saying a "top 5 Data Analytics company".
How many steps/stages/parts in a process/strategy/initiative/project?
Timeframe
How long? 6 month project, 1 year project?
How much earlier did you complete a project?
% of on time deliverables
Aggregate achievements
5 sales meetings per week x 50 weeks x 10 years = 2500+ sales meetings in career
Example for summaries or strengths if you say communication is a skill:
2500+ client facing meetings throughout career, including prospecting, closing and renewals.
Example if you list project management or problem-solving as a strength/core competency/skill:
Led 100+ projects with a minimum of $500k budget throughout career, including digital transformation, cloud migration and IT architecture.
Led 100+ projects with an average budget of $1M in the last 10 years, within x,y,z
You can mention team size, countries, using specific tools/programming language, revenue generated, on time deliveries, departments, types of projects, etc. It also doesn’t have to be projects. It could be features, articles, meetings, marketing campaigns, presentations etc. Be creative!
Aggregate achievements take the most time to think about but the work pays off. The second we ask recruiters to dig or figure out if you have a certain skill then it is already an uphill battle. 7 seconds go by fast. Make it easy for them!