Quantifying your achievements on your application is very important since companies do not recruit on qualifications alone.
When you are a student it might at first seem harder to write about and to quantify your achievements. Sometimes responsibilities and achievements in a part-time job, student society or volunteer job don’t sound impressive until we add in the detail of how much work is involved.
There are 3 simple ways to quantify your achievements with numbers:
- show how many
- show how much
- show how often
If you have undertaken any work experience include figures to help show your skills – e.g. in a sales environment – detail your profit, in a high volume administrative position – let the figures speak for themselves.
However, not all experience can easily translate into impressive numbers, particularly for students who have limited work experience. Therefore it is important to remember that achievements are not just about big numbers – anything that contributes to a company’s goals is an achievement. Therefore any work that you have done to further a company’s goals will be an achievement – such as changing a process to improve the ease or speed of a task. Alternatively if you are involved in volunteer or charity work – anything tangible that you do to help an organisation can be an achievement.
It also gives context.
Here are some other examples of achievements that you may be able to use:
- Raising money for charity – include how much your raised for charity and how you raised it.
- Training for and completing a 10k, half or full marathon or other sporting achievement.
- Taking on a position of responsiblity in a student society.
- Organising an event or giving a presentation at an event.
- Prizes and awards.
Action Point: Write a list of all your achievements in preparation for your applications (and interviews).