35+ Examples of Accomplishments To Put on Your Resume

No matter where you are in the job search, your resume is the first opportunity to make a good impression as a job seeker. In addition to skills, experience, and relevant education, there's a good chance you have a few achievements you want to highlight too. Here are a few tips to get you going.

What Accomplishments Should I Include?

Achievements and accomplishments are quantifiable ways to demonstrate your commitment and performance in previous jobs or education. It's how you show that all your experiences until this point have been more than enough to prepare you to take on the position you're now applying for.

The more specific you can be, the better. When you're thinking about your past experience, ask yourself if you have any of the following that you can list on your resume:

• Praise or recognition from people you worked with
• Any promotions, academic awards, or professional awards that can be tied back to your performance
• Committees or special groups that you were selected to join and contribute to
• Notable outcomes with a number attached e.g. increasing revenue by a certain dollar amount or percentage, improving project turnaround times from one time frame to another, or academic achievements like a GPA or test score.

What you choose to note down will look different from someone else, but that's what makes your resume accomplishments unique.

You can use Teal's Resume Builder for interactive assistance on how to tailor your resume and write about your work achievements in an impressive way. The key is to show what kind of employee you would be for this new company and to prospective employers and distinguish yourself from candidates who may have similar work experience.

The job of your resume is to get you in the door. Optimizing it will help you land interviews for the next opportunities that excite you. Teal’s free Resume Builder can help you keep your Work History up to date and help you write metric-driven achievements using our Achievement Assistant tool.

Take a close look at the job description for the position you're applying for and tailor your resume. Use Teal’s Resume Builder to quickly compare the skills and keywords in the job posting to those in your resume. Make sure to add any relevant experience to your customized resume and to your application answers.

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Accomplishment examples for students and recent graduates

As a current student or recent graduate, you might be concerned about what you can put down on a resume as an achievement or accomplishment. When you have little work experience, how do you show that you've made an impact?

Even without a formal work history in the industry you're trying to break into, you can still pull some helpful examples from other life experiences and turn these into positive reflections of your character. If you've thrived in academia, call out making the Dean's List, a stellar GPA or any merit-based scholarships.

You can also pinpoint moments during volunteering opportunities, internships, or even extracurriculars that show important skills like teamwork, leadership skills, and time management. Have you worked directly with customers in a retail store or as a server? Put that down to highlight your excellent communication and customer service process skills!

On a resume for an entry-level position, example achievements may include:

• Active member of Student Senate and appointed Treasurer for 2021-22
• Maintained a 4.0 GPA and place on Dean's List throughout entire undergraduate program
• Completed an extra credit paper and presented research findings on ecological engineering in the United States, earning a final grade of 97%
• Promoted from server to team leader during first six months of employment at a local restaurant

While your accomplishments may not directly tie into the job you're applying for, they clearly show various skills and responsibilities that any company can benefit from.

Accomplishment examples for experienced professionals

When you have several years of job history behind you, you should have at least a handful of key accomplishments that you can add to your resume. These will look different depending on the industry you work in and the seniority you've had, so let's look at a few examples.

Using Teal's Resume Builder tool paired with ChatGPT, you can quickly and easily customize your resume to make your achievements stand out to hiring managers and applicant tracking systems. Go to the "Responsibilities" section in job descriptions and copy and paste that into ChatGPT. Use the prompt, "Write resume achievements with metrics based on these job responsibilities", and watch them generate before your eyes.

Make sure to carefully proofread and edit the bullet point achievement with specific metrics, tweaking it as needed using the Achievement Assistant tool. Remember: AI tools are intelligent, but they're not foolproof. You want to ensure you actually have the experience that AI says you do, and you want to double-check for spelling, grammar, punctuation, and clarity. Need a stronger action verb? Swap it out. Need to change the verb tense for consistency? Go ahead and do that.

For a marketing executive or account manager role, you should have several data-driven achievements to note, regardless of the type of marketing you've done before. Work accomplishment examples could be:

• Increased online leads 278%  via these social media accounts and marketing channels and improved customer engagement rates 67% over a 12-month period
• Improved cost-per-click of digital ads, resulting in annual marketing savings of over $50,000
• Designed and launched a successful holiday email marketing campaign that generated over $450,000 revenue in 4 days
• Member of executive committee that oversaw the company's largest rebrand in over 20 years

More examples

Resume accomplishment examples for someone in human resources:

• Successfully managed and maintained personnel files for a team of 100+ employees, resulting in an organized and efficient HR process
• Cut down training length by 2 days through implementation of a new onboarding process
• Resolved employee relation issues and supported managers and supervisors in the fair application of company policies and procedures, resulting in a positive work environment and increased employee satisfaction rates by 25% over the year
• Increased employee retention rate by 16% by developing a performance appraisal program and conducting coaching and feedback sessions

Resume accomplishment statements for an administrative assistant:

• Coordinated with prospective employees and scheduled interviews in a timely manner, leading to 15+ new full-time hires
• Managed calendars of the executive team and coordinated weekly team-wide meetings for over 50 people
• Managed schedules with subcontractors, clients, and vendors, across 6 job sites, generating $9M in revenue
• Worked as a liaison and point of communication between 12 executives and 40+ staff members

Listing achievements on your resume if you are a software engineer:

• Worked closely with the product team to re-configure the processing of invoices, saving customers over 45,000 manual hours of work per month
• Improved member's connection to healthcare by 22% by fine-tuning the search engine
• Through A/B testing of different components and combinations improved customer conversion rate by 12%, representing $250,000+ in incremental annual revenue
• Helped sales team close 6 major deals generating more than $180K in revenue by presenting easy-to-understand software solutions

Accomplishments examples for a business analyst:

• Reduced operations cost by 12% by driving continued growth of the business with a focus on standardization, repeatable processes, and scalable assets
• Increased customer satisfaction by 29% by implementing new technologies and business processes
• Saved company a minimum of $8M annually by supporting a broad range of business process improvement initiatives with reporting and analysis using a variety of software tools
• Increased revenue by $16M through analysis of data surrounding customer behaviors, vendor relationships, stakeholder goals, and workflows

Accomplishment examples for administrative roles

If you've previously worked in an administrative role, there are plenty of professional achievements you can list around time efficiency, organization, and productivity, including:

• Scheduled and coordinated meetings for 15 senior leadership team members, resulting in a 30% reduction in meeting time requirements
• Developed a new client communication process, leading to time savings of 45 hours per month across the account management team
• Onboarded accounting department interns and provided ongoing training on company processes, procedures, and best practices

Accomplishment examples for management positions

Manager or supervisor positions will require you to show high levels of responsibility and leadership. You should include relevant accomplishments like:

• Oversaw a 35-person software development team with 40+ projects per quarter and total budgets exceeding $4.5 million
• Developed and implemented new hiring plan to help department fill open positions 17% faster than the previous year
• Managed a dispersed marketing team of 10 (7 direct reports) across 3 offices and 2 time zones, consistently exceeding monthly KPIs by 20% or more

More examples

Accomplishments on a resume for a project manager:

• Successfully managed deep sewer and water pipeline projects valued at up to $100M, resulting in a profit margin of 20%
• Managed and scheduled subcontractors effectively, resulting in a project completion rate of 95%
• Coordinated with foremen to anticipate and order materials and schedule employee and equipment resources, resulting in a 15% increase in productivity
• Conducted weekly meetings for project specific scheduling, budgeting, and planning with supervisors, resulting in a project completion rate of 98%

Listing accomplishments for a business development manager:

• Made an average of 8-10 dealership visits per day, resulting in a 20% increase in new sales prospects
• Collaborated with company leadership to set strategic goals and drive initiatives, resulting in a 15% increase in revenue
• Traveled locally and across the country to present partnership opportunities, resulting in a 30% conversion rate for new partnerships
• Assisted and trained dealers on documentation required for expedited funding, resulting in a 25% increase in loan approval rate

What achievements should I not include?

Irrelevant accomplishments

Many of your past experiences will likely strengthen your resume, but you need to be mindful of what achievements are most relevant for the applications you're submitting. Read through your resume carefully and pull out anything that could be irrelevant.

Confidential information

You may want to avoid potentially confidential details, like sales figures or annual revenue.

Academic achievements, once you've gained work experience

Once you've been in the working world for two years or more, most of your academic achievements can likely come off your resume and be replaced by job-specific accomplishments. 

Incorrect numbers

You also need to be sure that your data is correct. Employers may ask your references to confirm some of the achievements you've highlighted, so never embellish or over exaggerate results to make your resume look better. To avoid this, keep a record of any outcomes you might want to use during a future job search while in your current job.

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Why Do Achievements Matter To Employers?

It's no longer enough to simply state that you know how to do something or are able to meet the job responsibilities listed in the job posting. With high levels of competition in the job market, employers are looking for candidates who go above and beyond the normal job duties. 

Outlining your accomplishments on your resume is an ideal way to be specific about outcomes that impact the team or the company. It's a tangible way to demonstrate your abilities in previous roles to hiring managers and potential employers that can indicate what you might do in a new position since you have a proven track record.

Hiring managers will be looking for action-oriented verbs and buzzwords that are tied to these resume achievements. Words like “developed,” “led,” “improved,” “increased,” and “managed” are some of the most common. Any numerical data you can add to support will put you one step ahead of the competition.

Where Should Achievements Go On A Resume?

Some people put achievements in a professional summary at the top of their resume. Your professional summary is a chance to talk about your career in aggregate and highlight particularly notable results that are directly related to the jobs you're applying for.

Use Teal’s Professional Summary Builder Tool to highlight key achievements, work accomplishments, and past successes.

For most people, though, achievements should be integrated as bullet points under each of your previous roles. This gives your professional accomplishments more context for the hiring manager by showing them how these skills and outcomes were relevant to your work. Any academic achievements should be noted under your “Education” section.

When you're formatting your resume, this could look like:

Job Title, Company Name

January 2021 - January 2022

• Planned, directed, and implemented company SEO strategy, leading to a 212% increase in organic web traffic conversions year-over-year
• Increased page one, non-branded keyword rankings by 40% in under six months
• Trained digital marketing interns on SEO, content, and web best practices
• Served as community manager for all brand social media channels

What if you could drag and drop your work experience into a ready-made resume template? Think how much time designing and formatting your resume you'd save. Luckily, this scenario becomes a reality with Teal's Resume Builder.

Final Thoughts

It's easy to overlook exceptional results and performance outcomes when going about your day-to-day work. But for your next potential employer, those details are evidence of your success and indicate what you could do as part of their team. 

Our key takeaways, be proud of what you've accomplished and let your results do the talking.

By using Teal's Resume Builder, you can export your resume directly as a PDF and get it into the hands of hiring managers to land you a job interview.