4 Benefits To Documenting Your Accomplishments
There is one activity you can do right now that will have four immediate benefits for yourself and your career.
I want you to think back over the last 6 months, the last year, or even your entire working life. Write down all your work accomplishments. NOT your responsibilities. Your accomplishments!
Think about the times you exceeded your goals. The increase in sales or customer satisfaction for which you were responsible. The new projects and initiatives you led or developed. Think about the times you went above and beyond what was asked, or expected, of you. Think about the people’s lives you’ve directly, and positively, affected.
Now, write all these accomplishments down in a journal or brag book. Read them over. And then read them again.
The exercise of documenting your accomplishments has four benefits:
First, it will help you see how much you’ve contributed to your employer, your teammates, and the people you serve. During this time of heightened uncertainty and anxiety, we can all use a little reminder of how talented and valuable we are and how much impact we’ve had.
Second, paraphrasing Matthew McConaughey, “it enables you to dissect your successes to look for habits that can get you back on track when you are in a rut.” Thoroughly documenting your accomplishments provides the information and insight your struggling, future-self needs to get back on track.
Third, it provides you with an up-to-date, accessible list of accomplishments you can reference during performance reviews and discussions with your leader. Documenting your achievements now saves you time and energy leading up to, and during, performance discussions.
Finally, this exercise will give you a lot of the information you need to write a resume and LinkedIn profile that catches the attention of recruiters and hiring managers. As a recruiter, I can tell you that your accomplishments are more important and attractive to an employer than your responsibilities. A ready-to-use list of accomplishments will more easily enable you to highlight your talents and value on your resume and LinkedIn profile.
🗝 By taking the time to write down your work accomplishments, you’ll feel good about yourself, rediscover the factors that led to your successes, be better prepared for performance reviews, and have a lot of the information you need to write an eye-catching resume and LinkedIn profile.
So, open up that journal or brag book, and start writing!
[This article was originally published on LinkedIn on 5/16/23: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/4-benefits-documenting-your-accomplishments-bill-leonard-mhrm/?trackingId=%2F56MKIF5QHabCIL3PWMCLg%3D%3D]