How can I list my achievements in my resume if I don't have any

Question

I used a free resume review service and was kind of disappointed from their review. The person who reviewed it kept mentioning that the way I worded my resume make me look like a "Doer" but not an "Achiever". Of course he is talking about my job experience and the Projects section.

The problem is I didn't lie in my resume and that's the closest description to the truth. In my current company and my position there is no way to achieve something, there is no room for progress (it's like working for McDonalds). It's true I am a hard worker and I work 200% more then my co-workers and I do the job in half the time they take. But I am not sure if it's a good idea to say it that way on my resume.

I work as an Instrumentation Engineer (I do what I am told to do), so I can't say like other job experience description that 'since I came to the company we made twice the money we usually make or saved them 30% in expenses' ..etc

So what's the best approach to improve my resume in this area?

Answer 1

First and most important advice in writing CVs and resumes: WRITE FOR THE POSITION YOU'RE APPLYING and frame it in a way that's attractive for that position. Essentially, you need to "sell" yourself to the recruiter and the hiring manager. Do your research and understand what they're looking for.

As a hiring manager (I'm not a recruiter, mind, I'm their client), what I look for in a resume is a very simple framework of 3 topics:

Context: what was the job about, when and where. Sometimes the job titles are not really straight forward and you cannot understand off-the-bat what it means and where you place them in your own organization

Action: your key responsibilities within that job, and if you worked on something extra or other side projects, what was your role in them

Results: what kind of results and improvements can be directly attributed to your contribution. There NEEDS to be a clear causal relationship between your actions and the results.

You can and you should always look for ways of making your work more efficient and easy, if not for yourself, for your internal and external customers, and the results of that can be put into your resume or CV.

Answer 2

Being on the high end of "doing" is an "achievement".

What you have to do is look at the results, which is typically some form of work product, how it is delivered (you say faster and better than your peers), and how that impacted your employer (things delivered faster, better, cheaper, more revenue, greater profit).

Those are your "achievements".

I gave a "hire this person" recommendation to a manager recently because the person I interviewed fit that description - faster, better, cheaper - perfectly. He was hired, and it wasn't a mistake to hire him.

Answer 3

I find a couple items of interest based on your question:

1. You base everything on the opinion of one. Who is this person? What does he do? Is he just browsing resumes on this free site? What sort of qualifications he/she has?
2. He offers no improvements to your resume except to say you're a "doer."Whatever that means in the context of what you're trying to do I have no idea. That's sort of like pointing at a random car and saying it's a "goer" not a "racer."

My thoughts: apply to the jobs you want and see what you get back. Unless your resume is filled with fictional information or something, you should get back some hits in time.