Career Advice: Examples of Team Accomplishments When Applying for a Job

Welcome to “Dear Dana”, a column to give you career and workplace advice/coaching from executive coach, Dana Theus

Dear Dana, I am updating my resume to apply for jobs. I read your article about “speaking accomplishments.” I liked your advice and will apply it to how I manage the way I think about my resume accomplishments in the future, but I want to ask for more clarification on how I should put my work accomplishment statements on my resume when I achieve them as part of a team. My job is almost all in teams that are matrixed with other groups. I lead contract compliance teams, and I work with just about every group in the company, but the other people actually DO the work in their areas. I’m just coordinating them to make sure they’re in compliance. So I know what my tasks are, coordinating these groups and updating status reports, but I’m not sure what my accomplishments are, since other people usually accomplish the contract items. Any advice for how to include accomplishments on my resume? – Confused in Chillicothe

Dear Confused-Thanks for your question. I understand how hard it can be to figure out what you can actually claim as an example of your “greatest accomplishment” when you feel like most of your job is being a cog in a very large set of wheels. Been there! Here’s some advice that can help you update your resume with a strong accomplishment statement.

First: Be specific about your “customer” engagement

The key is to break it down and ask yourself “Who was the “customer” that benefited from my work, and how did I make their life better?” The answer is an example of a greatest accomplishment! In your case it sounds like you have internal customers among all the people you’re coordinating. When updating your resume and even discussing your achievements in job interviews, it’s crucial to include relevant keywords from the job description and your own experience to cater to the applicant tracking system (ATS), which many companies use to screen resumes. Many of these keywords are in the group names of your internal customers.

These keywords aren’t just there for the ATS, but for prospective employers’ hiring managers and interviewers as well who will be looking for real world experience examples of your impact. When they see the names of the departments and people you supported, it helps them envision the environments you’ve worked in before. They know more about your specific job, and the work you’ve done just by looking at your “customers”. They know the kinds of problems you’ve solved, the kinds of effective management you’ve had to perform, and the company culture you’ve worked in. They can anticipate how well you’ll “get” the kind of challenges you’ll have working for them and this will help them evaluate you against other job seekers very quickly. Be sure to highlight specific team achievement examples in your cover letter, too.

So take a look at the teams you’ve worked in and identify which internal customers you’ve supported, such as:

• finance/legal/HR
• operations
• sales
• marketing
• product
• service delivery
• customer satisfaction and service

Second: Be specific about the benefit your “customer” received

You said you’re helping your internal customers remain contract-compliant, which describes your regular job duties and showcases your leadership skills and ability to deliver results. Can you break down the benefit that compliance brings to each team? Here are some concrete examples:

• If the sales team is compensated on recognized revenue, maintaining compliance can help them continually meet increased sales goals.
• If the compliance tracking helps the client delivery and operations team update their project plans, you’re helping them meet customer deadlines, respond to customer complaints, and achieve customer satisfaction.
• If the legal team has to litigate out-of-compliance projects, you’re helping reduce litigation costs by increasing compliance.

Of course, if you can attach a dollar value–or any measurable accomplishments–to any outcome, you should do so! It’s possible you don’t know all the value you’re delivering, in which case you should talk to your team members (or their bosses) to learn more about how they quantify and value the effort you’re bringing. Here are some metrics that often offer low-hanging fruit for metrics you can include in your accomplishment statement:

• annual supply costs
• company website effectiveness
• employee satisfaction rates
• employee morale
• hiring process
• organizational efficiency
• increasing productivity
• client accounts performance
• system performance
• customer service examples (which underly winning trends)
• SEO strategy effectiveness
• sales examples: annual revenue, revenue-per-customer, sales cycle timelines
• marketing examples: market share, social media performance, website traffic, leads generated, marketing campaign effectiveness, online reviews

Don’t worry about having to tell them you’re applying for jobs. Identifying your accomplishments is something you should do internally anyway, in order to informally update your boss on your work and to formally include them in performance reviews. Ask them questions like:

• If we didn’t have this team, what would you do instead to ensure you met these compliance objectives were successfully completed?
• Would it cost them more to do it without you? How much more?
• If they don’t meet their compliance objectives, what is the cost and who pays it?

And don’t forget to look at cumulative impacts! Some accomplishments can be tracked over a one to five-year period. As long as you can describe the positive impact from your previous roles, in ways that are relevant to the job posting you’re applying to, you’re on the right track. Whenever you’re working in a team, it can be confusing about what you can claim as an outcome, as opposed to your job responsibilities. How do you phrase your greatest accomplishment when you work on a team? Here’s some advice that can help you update your resume.

Third: Specify your job responsibilities and contribution to team success

Whenever you’re working in a team, it can be confusing about what you can claim as an outcome, as opposed to what you can’t really claim credit for–because others did a lot of the work. Be careful not to claim things that you didn’t do, but do claim your contribution to the outcome (and be specific about both.) Including more examples of measurable achievements in your resume summary can capture the attention of a hiring manager.

How do you phrase your greatest accomplishment when you work on a team? Here’s some advice that can help you update your resume. Click to tweet

As I mentioned in the previous post, you want to stay away from listing your activities alone, but when you list them as the reason that your team was successful, this is very powerful and shows hiring managers both what you did and the impact it had. In this case, you’re listing the team’s accomplishment and then identifying specifically what you did to help achieve it.

So, let’s say your team was instrumental in ensuring 98% contract compliance last year (the team accomplishment) and your role was in coordinating weekly contract reviews. You might state your personal greatest accomplishment as ensured team achieved 98% contract compliance by coordinating communication between four departments and escalating issues before they jeopardized compliance commitments. In this instance, you are listing your work activities, but you’re doing it in the context of the team success goal. Of course this means you need to know specifically what your team accomplished, and any corollary metrics, but as with the note above, these are things you should be tracking anyway (so if you’re not, start now!)

Even though in job interviews you’re likely to be asked for an example of your “greatest” accomplishment, you should be tracking all your accomplishments and keeping a record of them. Sometimes many small ones add up to a “greatest” accomplishment, and tracking them makes it easier to speak to others about your value and to believe it yourself.

Good luck!

Dana Theus

Executive Coach

P.S. — Need help writing your biggest accomplishments for your resume or LinkedIn profile? Download our worksheet on resume accomplishments for tips, fill-in-the-blank guidance, and examples! Get a BONUS personality assessment too!

Updated: Original post 2018