Brainstorming Accomplishments by Experiences

1 Form # RR 0500001 Revision A Brainstorming Accomplishments by Experiences The bulk of your resume is the Experiences you ve had, written in a way that emphasizes the skills that qualify you for the position. To do that, you need to demonstrate the Accomplishments you have attained during your Experiences . This handout will help you brainstorm those Accomplishments . Step 1: Write all of your Experiences down: 1. Work Experiences 2. Internships 3. Volunteering 4. Student Organizations/ Sports Teams 5. Research 6. Anywhere else you contributed your time for an end result STOP! Quickly write down the internship/job/volunteer/organization you are most proud of right now!

2 _____ Step 2: With each experience , separate day-to-day Experiences from the one-time events. Example: You are a summer marketing intern at a company and your big project is to come up with a new marketing plan for the company s target customer. Day-to-day experience : Analyze characteristics of target customers and research proven marketing techniques for this segment in order to make the plan. One-Time experience : Presented new marketing plan to VP of company and implemented the recommendations. The day-to-day experience shows off this person s analytical skills while the one-time experience highlighted a different skill set (communication, persuasion, public speaking, etc).

3 STOP! Using your experience above, write down what you did day-to-day and what came of it. Now write down a big one-time experience in that job/ _____ Step 3: Answer these questions about your Experiences to help think of your Accomplishments . 1. In this experience , what special things did you do to set yourself apart? How did you complete your tasks better than anyone else did or than anyone else could have done? _____ 2. What did you do to make this experience your own? How did you take the initiative? How did you go above and beyond what was asked of you in your job description? _____ Form # RR 0500001 Revision A 3.

4 How has the organization benefited from your performance? How did you/will you leave this employer better off than before you worked there? _____ 4. What did you do that shows the skills you identified earlier? _____ 5. What are you most proud of in this experience ? _____ 6. List any awards you won, such as Employee of the Month or President s Club. _____ 7. Check your annual performance reviews for this position. Provide any glowing or even complimentary quotes from your reviews. Did you consistently receive high ratings? _____ 8. Have you received any complimentary memos or letters from employers or customers?

5 Provide quotes from these letters that support your Accomplishments . _____ 9. What tangible evidence do you have of Accomplishments -- publications you've produced, products you've developed, software applications you've written? _____ 10. How have you helped your employer to make money such as through sales increase percentages or cost reductions? _____ 11. If you had to ghost-write a letter of recommendation about you from your boss, what would be in it? _____ 12. How did you solve one or more specific problems in this experience ? What were the problems or challenges that you or the organization faced?

6 What did you do to overcome the problems? What were the results of your efforts? _____ NOTE: When describing your accomplishment, use the SAR or PAR technique, in which you describe a Situation or Problem that existed in a given experience , tell what Action you took to fix the Situation or Problem, and what the Result was.