How many times have you visited Career Services and the counselor looks over your resume and tells you that the bullets under your Experience section should be quantifiable? But what if your internship or volunteer job was only for a brief time frame and you weren’t around to quantify the results of your hard work?
I know I try to steer students away from purely ‘describing’ their experience on their resume and instead have them focus on quantifying the experience, especially with quick reference points: numbers, amounts, percentages.
So, for a few great tips on how to write non-quantifiable accomplishments – especially for those times where the internship was brief – visit the recent blog post of Clean Techies. They correctly note that “clearly highlighted and dynamically written accomplishments facilitate resume skimming and ensure that your achievements get readers’ attention.”
What if you haven’t raised a lot of funds for your student org, generating increased member participation, or managed a team? This doesn’t mean your accomplishments are any less impressive or important.
Here are some tips Clean Techies advise you to take:
– If you’re starting out in a new field, you can highlight what you’ve learned — and how — as an accomplishment so that you write it in a way that more strongly shows the level of your participation.
– First-person pronouns strike a note that’s too casual and informal. Ex: avoid using “I”.
– Clarifying the cause and effect of what you did solidifies what you contributed and emphasizes how your relationship-building skills benefited the business. Ex: You made good impressions at your internship — so what? What was the effect?
– Always steer clear of passive voice when crafting your accomplishments. Active voice is much more effective.
Check out the blog post to see the Before and After examples.