Executive resume writing

Accomplishments

Your resume should present your major accomplishments. A top executive resume should not list all of your daily tasks and responsibilities. A list of specific, measurable accomplishments is much better at “selling” yourself than a description of your responsibilities. Include a bulleted list of specific accomplishments (results) you’ve achieved in a particular job in each paragraph of this section. For example:

• “Increased regional sales by 50% over the past year.”
• “Optimized the company’s business processes, resulting in a 35% increase in company profits.”
• “Created a project team to solve Problem Y and resulted in a 40% increase in sales.”
• “Built an effective team and we were able to deliver on the plan by 120%.”
• “Developed and implemented a credit analysis system from the ground up that increased portfolio profitability by 35% using a credit rating system.”
• “Increased company revenue by hiring, training, and organizing contract professionals, which helped reduce order processing time and optimize sales representatives.”

Examples of accomplishments and results in a resume

Avoid passive constructs such as “was involved,” “I was assigned,” and other expressions that indirectly indicate your lack of personal initiative.

A top manager’s resume should (forward-looking) emphasize results, accomplishments, and performance measures by which to judge career progression.

Challenging tasks that had to be accomplished

You should highlight the most important stages of your career, following the logic of “challenge (problem)-action-result,” and demonstrate your ability to cope with challenges. For example:

• Problem: Company “Y” started out in a highly competitive environment.
• Actions: As co-owner of the company, improved its business operations and built constructive relationships with customers, employees, suppliers, and partners. Acquired conflict prevention and resolution skills.
  Result: Within five years, the company’s annual sales increased eightfold. In 2021, the company was named one of the top 100 companies in the construction market and received the International Association’s top award.
• Keep business information confidential with respect to performance at previous jobs. Don’t list sales and profit figures in absolute terms; it will suffice to insert sales growth as a percentage.

Keywords

Many companies use special programs to store and organize applicant data. Keywords increase the likelihood that an employer will select your resume. They may be included as a separate list or randomly scattered throughout your resume and cover letter. Such keywords could be “sales, auditor, CFO, marketing, human resources, taxes, software,” and so on.

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