Is your “success resume” up to date?

Sure, you’re one bad, goal-setting, success-wielding, achievement-oriented mutha’ - but after you’ve conquered a goal and basked in the glow of success what do you do?

Do you keep an achievement cheat-sheet? Do you keep your “success resume” up to date on a regular basis? If you’re like most people, I’m willing to wager that answer will be, “no.”

It’s easy to get into the habit of setting and achieving goals - that’s the first part of the recipe of success. Accurately recording your achievements when they’re fresh in your mind is the second part of the recipe of success.

It’s easy to let your accomplishments slip by after you’ve enjoyed that “I did it!” moment; when asked what you accomplished last year or the year before you have to spend precious time creating your list, remembering the details, the impact and the results. This isn’t an efficient way to spend your time!

I admit I used to be this way. I’ve been “into” goal setting and personal achievement for a long time, but I never kept my success resume up to date. When I owned my own company, a resume and corporate overview was often one of the first things clients would ask for as we started a relationship.

Every time a client asked for this I had to dust off my last copy, review it, add to it any personal or business accomplishments and then present it to my client. Depending on how long it had been since I last used my success resume, it could take a not insignificant amount of time to get it up to date.

When I sold my business I kicked around as a “consultant” for a while before finally deciding I should get a “real job.” I was in for a shock; I hadn’t bothered to update my resume in a long time - about two years - and pulling it together turned into an all day affair! After this, I decided I needed to keep a current accomplishment cheat-sheet and keep my resume updated much more frequently.

Here’s the process I used to get everything under control:

1) Choose your tools
You will need either a nice notebook or journal that you can dedicate to recording your achievements, or a computer with a word processing application. I prefer the computer for this because I can generally type much faster than I can write.

2) Layout the document
Create a document and name it something creative like “2006 Accomplishments”. Then add four pages and at the top of each page write, Q1 2006, Q2 2006, Q3 2006, Q4 2006. You’re going to track your accomplishments by quarter.

3) Play catch up
If you’re just starting this process the chances are good you’ve not started a new year fresh and ready to go (unless you’re reading this article in January, and then you are starting a new year fresh and ready to go). Spend time outlining all of your major accomplishments for the year so far. At this point just a sentence is good, but get them all captured and try to allocate them to the quarter in which they were accomplished.

4) Stay current
Once you’ve started your accomplishment list you have to stay current; review it and update it (if needed) at least monthly. The entire point is to capture your accomplishments in only a few minutes, while the details are still fresh in your mind. If you stay on top of recording your accomplishments as they happen it will only take you moments to record them. This will save you much time compared to an end-of-year review, plus you’ll be able to capture much more detail and specific fact and figures without having to dig back through your records come December (or worse, the next year!).

5) Update your resume quarterly
You have a list of accomplishments and you’re staying current and keeping your list updated. Now you need to sit down at the beginning of each quarter and translate your accomplishments into your resume. Make sure that the responsibilities you have listed on your resume match your responsibilities on your achievement cheat-sheet. Drop from your resume projects with less impressive outcomes for projects with more impressive outcomes. This is your chance to really make yourself shine.

Once I followed the five steps above I realized that I spent less overall time tending my resume, and I didn’t have that “panicky” feeling of knowing it wasn’t in tip-top shape when asked for it. I knew it was no more than three months out of date, and it had been recently updated with my most impressive and high-impact accomplishments.

You don’ t need to write pages and pages for each accomplishment; you simply need to distill the major elements from the accomplishment down into a sentence or two, with pertinent facts and figures. You want to create expanded bullet points which will eventually make it to your resume or your annual review if you work for a company.

Here is a sample from my 2005 major accomplishment file:

1) Negotiated the purchase of a 16kVA APC Symmetra LX UPS (extended run version) for $10,450 (down from $15,700).

2) Designed company ID badge & created specification for the data and format of company’s ID program to be C-TPAT compliant. Resulting badges & ideas were adopted by US Customs & Border Patrol as recommended guidelines for small businesses looking to certify & comply with C-TPAT requirements.

3) Worked with web design and e-commerce company to implement a new e-commerce engine for company’s online sales. The company’s online sales (Jan – July) were $#.# million and the new e-commerce enabled site was negotiated for $#,### including custom pricing functionality to handle unique per-customer, per-product pricing requirements. R.O.I. on project was calculated at 4.2 weeks based on the company’s YTD (Jan – July) online sales.

4) Read 28 books in 2005 including 16 directly related to self improvement, success or development (goal was 3 books on development per quarter). Books were: January: Split Second, Leadership 101, Attitude 101, As a Man Thinketh, The Doomsday Conspiracy. February: Steal This Book, Babylon Rising, Goal Setting 101. March: Man’s Search for Meaning, Made in America, My Story. April: The Fountainhead. May: The Taking. June: How to Become CEO, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be, The Fred Factor, Getting Things Done. July: Speaker For The Dead, Xenocide. August: Shadow of the Giant, 1776, Children of the Mind, The Time Trap, Managing for Dummies, How to Talk to Anyone (92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships). November: Rich Dad’s Before You Quit Your Job. December: 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions, 301 Management Ideas, Ready for Anything.

I have also found that keeping a written record of accomplishments is an excellent tool to justify requests for raises or bonus programs if you work for an employer. In our modern society we’re only usually as good as our last project - the “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?” factor. It’s easy for employers to conveniently “forget” about important achievements and contributions, but it’s very difficult to argue with facts and figures.

If you keep your achievement cheat-sheet up to date, you’ll be armed when you ask for a raise or a bonus. You can layout exactly what your accomplishments have been, and you’ll have ammunition that your employer likely will not.

If you’ve also kept your resume up to date you’ll be ready to move on if your requests for a deserved raise fall on deaf ears time and time again.

If you’re self-employed, keeping an achievement cheat-sheet and keeping your professional or company resume up to date is vital too. These days clients are asking to see more and more detailed information from the vendors they use. If you have a professional resume ready-to-go it will give you a definite advantage over your competitors in your market-space.

I urge you to start today; spend the time to get your achievement cheat-sheet caught up and then spend the (minimal) on-going time to keep it current. The rewards will be well worth it!

1 comment January 29th, 2006