How to write an eye popping achievement statement on your resume that makes a recruiter sit up and take notice

I am writing this post knowing full well it may just backfire on me.

That’s because if you pick up on what I am saying, I might be out of a job.

When I write resumes and LinkedIn profiles, I spend a great deal of time turning my client’s mindset around from thinking about what they’ve done, to expressing this in terms of the impact they’ve made.

What do I mean by this?

This here below is a responsibility, I may typically see written on an Accountant’s resume.

• Month-end reporting and month-end account closing procedures

Yes, yes it’s a bit ho hum.

This statement pretty much reads the same as every other Accountant doing the same thing.

To stand out to an employer you want to show that you are proactive, can initiate and deliver improvements, or as we say in resume writing land – “add value.”

Essentially you need to think about where your work has had an impact.

Even better, you want to express that impact terms that are meaningful to your industry or future employer. So think about how they measure success and the impact they want you to have on their business.

Some people get this partially right. So typically I might see this on someone’s resume:

• Automated month end entries, reviewed processes that delayed closing, negotiated with managers to gain agreement to complete tasks on time and automated checks and reconciliations to reduce production of month end management reporting from 25 to 10 days.

The problem still with this statement is that the interesting impact bit is buried.

To make it more eye popping the Accountant could write this as….

• Reduced month end management reporting time from 25 days to 10 days automating entries, reviewing processes that delayed closing, negotiating with managers to gain agreement to complete tasks on time and automating checks and reconciliations

Now, if I am an employer, who’s wanting an Accountant to improve processes, and help the management team make more informed decisions faster, I would be looking more closely at my Accountant friend here.

I might be slightly exaggerating about the eye popping bit in my blog headline.

But as an employer I would be asking her more detailed questions about how she did it.

PS: The reason it’s important to put the value added part first in this statement is that we skim read text. We also read quickly down the page, so you want the value statement to be the part of the statement the employer reads (not skims).