Michigan Ross MBA Information Session in Tokyo on December 27th, 2012

I was told by current students of the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan that students and alumni of their program will be hosting an information session in Shibuya, Tokyo on Thursday, December 27, 2012 from 7:30pm to 9pm (the session will likely be conducted in Japanese).  More information and a sign up form can be found here.

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com

Responsibilities and Accomplishments in the Resume (Part 2)

This is a follow-up to an earlier posting I wrote titled Mixing Responsibilities and Accomplishments in the Resume.  In that posting I discussed how to make a clear distinction between responsibilities and accomplishments in the resume.  In this posting I'd like to mention why this is important, and why accomplishments are a better use of your resume real estate than responsibilities.

ABC Corporation                                     Toronto, Canada

Director, Sales Department                      4/2011 - present

- manage team of 8

- write annual sales plan for product line of entire company and aim to beat forecasts

- work closely with regional sales reps across North America and Europe

- responsible for making pricing strategies

What do we have as bullet point content here? Essentially, a lot of detail on what you would expect a Director of the Sales Department to have to manage.  In fact, if you were looking for a generic description of the prototypical Director of Sales, then here it is. This is good and fine, as it is clear and to the point and obviously this person is responsible to no small degree for the bottom line of the company based on whether or not she is been successful at her work.

The problem is this: has this person been successful? Is it possible for you, given the information provided, to assess how well she has done her job? The answer is no, and this can be very frustrating to the evaluator of a resume, who aims to understand how well the job has been done - not just what the job entails.  They want to evaluate your performance, but they cannot without understanding not only what you were supposed to do, but what you actually did. The key then is to convert a lot of bullet points to accomplishments.

ABC Corporation                                     Toronto, Canada

Director, Sales Department                      4/2011 - present

- Selected, based on accomplishment, to manage team of 8 selling the entire product line worldwide

- Developed annual sales plan for entire company product line and beat sales projections by 20% in FY2012

- Worked closely with regional sales reps across North America and Europe to increase sales in key markets (increased sales in North America by 15%) and develop new markets (created new business worth US$1M/year in France)

- Created new pricing strategies that allowed for penetration of key young adult demographic in the US

This, above, shows accomplishments. It is not written well (yet), but at the very least offers more information - namely the results of this person's efforts and hard work.  More can be done to highlight these accomplishments. For instance, this could be changed:

- Worked closely with regional sales reps across North America and Europe to increase sales in key markets (increased sales in North America by 15%) and develop new markets (created new business worth US$1M/year in France)

to something that emphasizes the result, and then adds detail about the work that was done:

- Created new business worth US$1M/year in France by establishing new business framework with Paris-based sales reps

- Increased sales in key North America market by 15% by introducing new channel segmentation that focused on shelf space in large retail chains

.. and so on.  The point here is that in a resume your responsibilities don't do a lot of talking - it's what you could actually accomplish that shows the true impact you had on your organization. (note: you can also add the "responsibility line" directly underneath the title, as I demonstrated here)

If your resume looks like example one at the top of this post, start working in your accomplishments, so that the reader of your resume can better evaluate how well you've done the work expected of you. 

John Couke

john.couke@gmail.com

Darden Admissions Event and Alumni Reception in Tokyo on December 6, 2012

The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia will be hosting an admissions event and alumni reception in Tokyo on Thursday, December 6, 2012. Register for this event here.

John Couke
john.couke@gmail.com