Making An Accomplishment Resume

The resume might be one of the most misunderstood aspects of the job search.  Too many job seekers make the mistake of listing what they did at a previous job rather than what they accomplished.  If you don't say how your work impacted your previous company, how will an employer know why your work was important?  Here are two resume examples I have written: One would be in a standard resume, the other is an accomplishment resume:

Example 1:

9/09-10/10: Social Media Assistant at Company X: Wrote blog posts for a start up marketing firm, updated Facebook and Twitter pages.

See how this example only tells what job was?  A potential employer will need to know much more than this if they are going to be interested in hiring you.

Example 2:

9/09-10/10: Social Media Assistant at Company X: Wrote blog posts that helped drive traffic to our website.  These posts helped generate 50,000 new pageviews per month.  Before these posts, our page views were at around 20,000 per month.  Transformed our previously empty Facebook and Twitter pages to active social media hubs.

This is a much more useful description for an employer.  It gives specific stats that help them understand how the blog posts helped the company the applicant worked for.  That is why an accomplishment-based resume is much more useful for your purposes: It gives the employer a reason to hire you.