Resumés:
Powerful Accomplishment Statements
Think about and make a list of your skills, interests, and values. Ask yourself "When have I...?
- Improved a process or product?
- Saved time or money?
- Taken initiative and solved a problem?
- Created or designed a new process, program, procedure or report?
P = Problem, Project, Challenge, Opportunity or Subject of your work.
A = Action Taken: What did you do to solve the problem?
R = Results: What was the outcome or impact of your efforts?
The PAR formula in action:
P = Company experienced many customer complaints, 20+ complaints per month.
A = Established "hotline" to handle customer inquiries, implemented customer complaint handling software to track and resolve complaints.
R = Decreased customer complaints by 33% and product returns by 45%.
Accomplishment Statements:
- Established "hotline" to handle customer inquiries, which decreased complaints by 33%.
- Implemented software to track and resolve customer complaints, resulting in a 45% decrease in product returns.
Tips for Writing Powerful Accomplishment Statements
- Duties and responsibilities are NOT effective in distinguishing your skills. For example: Responsibilities included filing and ordering office supplies. Instead, the statement could read: Developed filing system for office that reduced administrative search time by 25%.
- Use before and after comparisons; they can easily be turned into Accomplishment Statements.
Before – I organized the inventory, orders took 3 hours.
After – I organized the inventory, orders were processed in 20 minutes.
Resulting Accomplishment Statement: Organized inventory and reduced order time by two and one-half hours per order. - Incorporate numbers, data, facts, percentages, and figures that create an impact. Examples include:
- "A long report" vs. "250-page status report"
- "Managed staff" vs. "managed four-person staff"
- Keep your sentences/bullet points short and focused on the result.
- Start your Accomplishment Statements with an "action verb."
- Rework your Accomplishment Statements several times to give them impact.
- Make sure your statements are clear and verifiable. Can you explain the results in detail to an interviewer?
- Determine the company's needs and craft Accomplishment Statements to meet those needs.
- Research the skills and competencies your potential employer values for the position.
- Be aware that resumé readers and recruiters will likely read the first one or two bullets under each job. Therefore, order the bullets to reflect the skills that the employer finds most pertinent, and not necessarily those most important in the old job or those that consumed the greatest amount of time.
