Recently, I posed a question in a LinkedIn group for professional women, and received an overwhelming response. The question was:

“What is the greatest obstacle you face in your career advancement?”

Out of over 100 responses, a top concern was the lack of ability (or know-how) to document and share career accomplishments. Below are some of the actual responses I received to the question, ‘What is the greatest obstacle you face in your career advancement?’:

• Not knowing how to document and share my accomplishments.
• Doing the work for others, but not getting the title and pay to go with it. This leads to getting locked into a position that I am over qualified for.
• Not being good at “tooting my own horn” and promoting myself.
• I really would like to move from project manager to full time program manager. I have done program management for about 5 years over the course of my career, but have not held the title. I just can’t get past that hurdle even though I have the strategic focus and drive to achieve that is required for program management.
• Not being able to advance to the next level. I even was told I have to do the next level work in order to advance for a year to show I can do it… ok, I did that and then still didn’t advance or get any raises even when asked.

All of the above issues come from real professionals who are struggling to get where they want to be in their careers because they don’t know how to truly prove their value. It would be nice if someone kept track of your accomplishments for you as they happened, right?!

The truth is that you are the one who knows your experience and achievements better than anyone else. So, keeping track of your accomplishments yourself (as they happen, or shortly thereafter) is the best and most effective way to go.

“All too rare is the employee who keeps a sufficient tally of her accomplishments at work. While we might be great at our jobs—setting and reaching ambitious goals, pioneering new ideas, advancing our organization’s mission—we often get too caught up in the moment, or in thinking about the next frontier, to keep good records of what we’ve done.” April Greene, Idealist Careers

Whatever career stage or season you’re in, having an at-the-ready list of your most important achievements could benefit you in a variety of situations, including below are a few situations that benefit from including:

• Resume: Your resume should be filled with as many of your accomplishments/achievements/recognitions, etc. as possible, and these achievements should be emphasized (through formatting) so that they stand out to the reader, even at first glance. This is a great way to help elevate yourself above other candidates with similar experience.
• Interviewing: In your interview preparation, it is important to prepare a few different anecdotes which provide specific examples of your achievements, successes, and skills. This will demonstrate your ability to contribute to company success.

You may even want to prepare an anecdote which illustrates a time in your career when you struggled with or failed at something, what you learned from that experience, and how you used that knowledge to improve upon yourself.

The important thing to remember is to tell a story which illustrates your true character as a professional, instead of just providing generalized answers to common interview questions. (Expert Tip: In order to ensure maximum effectiveness, do your best to make sure the way you present yourself is aligned with the culture of the company.)

• Salary Negotiation: The best way to support your request for a higher salary (in your current position or a new one) is being able to reference accurate and specific examples of how you’ve contributed to current (or past) employer success. It would be even more effective to also include measurable results wherever possible. This is an especially powerful way to elevate yourself above other candidates with similar experience.
• Performance Reviews: Accurate and specific examples of how you’ve contributed to company success are also the best way to establish your value in a regular performance review.
• Seeking Support for a New Project, Initiative, or Leadership Opportunity: If you’ve built a reputation for success in your career and company tenure (and you can quickly and easily walk others through it), you’re much more likely to garner the support of your colleague and superiors.

One of the most important things about recording and using accomplishments is being able to quantify them.

After all, while it’s good to be able to state that you “increased sales”, it’s much more impactful to be able to state that you “increased sales by 53% through a focused effort on growing recurring business (14% increase), ecommerce (27% increase), and new products (12% increase). Your achievements have a much higher impact when they are tied to solid metrics.

Measurable achievements (i.e. numbers) on a resume help to build your credibility, and they (along with percent and dollar signs) stand out on the page – and especially to recruiters. In fact, recruiters will often scan the document looking for those specific elements as one way to determine who to interview.

Below is a (by no means comprehensive) list examples for the kinds of numbers hiring managers look for:

• Revenue generation
• Increase in number of accounts or spend-per-account
• Increased market share, territory size, and/or brand recognition
• Cost reduction
• Improved efficiencies
• Size of budgets you’ve managed
• Number of contracts/bids won
• Quantity of equipment/inventory managed
• Internal performance benchmarks achieved and/or awards/recognitions
• Leadership opportunities (team size, project spend, etc.)
• Deadline- or budget-related achievements (completing within deadlines and/or coming in under budget)
• Publications featuring your work

“If you absolutely can’t come up with numbers to attach to accomplishments, consider using words such as “first,” “only,” “best,” “most,” “top,” and “highest” to describe your accomplishments.” (LiveCareer)

An example of this might be:

“Led the development and implementation of a growth initiative which resulted in significant year-over-year increases in profit and revenue.”

Even though this example doesn’t give specific numbers to measure or quantify the achievement, it does use strong language to indicate the scope of the achievement.

And if you struggle to understand how best to phrase your accomplishments, there’s a pretty simple formula to help you out.

Accomplishment = Action Verb + Result (Quantified) + Timeframe

(CareerLeveling)

So, first let’s talk about your action verb. In my earlier example, I used the word ‘increase(d)’ as the action verb. This is a common one, as most companies will view higher revenue, market share, etc. as a positive (who wouldn’t, right?!), so including those kinds of accomplishments is a no-brainer.

Other common action verbs include

• To Move Forward: Drive, Accelerate, Elevate, Propel
• To Lead: Spearhead, Champion, Helm
• To Begin/Start (as in a new program or initiative): Initiate, Implement, Activate, Pilot
• To Create: Build, Cultivate, Develop
• To Improve: Optimize, Transform, Strengthen

The result component of the formula is something we discussed above – you either want to include specific, measurable stats (numbers / dollars / percentages) or you want to use strong, impactful language to indicate the scope of your achievements.

While the timeframe component this isn’t always necessary, including it can increase the impact of your achievements and provide an even clearer idea of who you are as a professional and what you’re capable of.

If this all sounds a bit overwhelming, don’t worry! Just take a deep breath and remember that even the biggest things in the world only happen one step at a time.

The simplest and most convenient way to instill the practice of tracking your own accomplishments is to set a calendar reminder once per month. That way you do it often enough so that no single tracking/recording session will take up too much time, but not so often that the practice becomes tedious.

You can keep track in a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, or by hand in a notebook. Whatever works best for you will do the trick. The important thing is that you do it, and you set yourself up for future success in the process!