Top Achievements to Put on Your Resume (50+ Examples)
While resumes typically highlight your work experience, education, and skills, achievements make sure the recruiter gives you a second look. If you’re not quite sure what counts as an accomplishment, we’ve got you covered.
Passing the 30-second resume test doesn’t have to be hard. Just make sure you give recruiters what they’re looking for. Since 32.5% of them say they want to see quantifiable achievements on applications, you should do just that. It’s a snappy way to demonstrate your value.
But how can you make sure you get it right? Luckily, you’ve come to the right place.
In this article, you will discover:
- What counts as resume accomplishments and how to quantify them.
- Concrete examples of the type of achievements to put on your resume.
- Different achievement examples based on your profession.
Should I list achievements on my resume?
The short answer is yes.
Having achievements on your resume shows recruiters what you’re capable of. When you pair them with quantifiable results, it gives them a first idea of your value. Beyond just telling the reader what your duties were in a role, it tells them about the impact you made, too.
Resume accomplishments define your roles and education by the outcomes of your work. Simply put, they’re the best way to show the recruiter what you can bring to the table. In most cases, you should list achievements on your resume. Of course, there are exceptions.
When not to include achievements:
- If they include NDA-protected information you legally can’t share.
- When the metrics are highly confidential and private to the business.
Where to list your accomplishments and achievements?
There are four main areas where you can prominently highlight your accomplishments: your resume summary, your work experience section, your education section, or in a dedicated accomplishments section.
Let’s break it down with some practical examples of resumes below:
You can create a dedicated accomplishments section. This can be a bulleted or comma-separated list, and you can divide the section into subsections based on the type of achievement. Remember, only list accomplishments that are relevant to the job and will directly boost your chances of scoring an interview.
Your resume summary shows off your career highlight in just a few sentences. It sits beneath your name and contact information, and it’s designed to capture a hiring manager’s attention.
You should also outline resume accomplishments in your work experience section. Under each role, add a few bullet points that highlight your achievements and successes in that role.
Focus more on quantified achievements rather than job duties and responsibilities. Potential employers will likely already know generally what you did from your job title.
If you are a student, recent graduate, or applying for jobs in the academic field, you can also include accomplishments in your education section. However, if you have more than five years of professional experience post-graduation, you can generally leave this off your resume.
Jobseeker tip: Writing a cover letter to support your resume is the best way to provide context to your achievements. Take a look at our cover letter examples that are tailored to each profession to get inspiration for your own application!
How to write strong resume accomplishments (Quick Guide)
Adding achievements to your resume is straightforward enough. However, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Follow the steps we’ve shared below to get started.
Step 1: Start with an action verb
Action verbs, such as “led,” “spearheaded,” and “delivered,” show you were in charge of the results. These have the power to transform boring sentences into dynamic points.
Skip any opening words that make you sound passive, for instance, “responsible for”. Action words are active, highlighting the fact that you were a key player.
- Spearheaded the company's first influencer campaign, reaching 2M users in 30 days
- Led a cross-functional team of 12 to launch a new CRM system in three weeks
- Built and trained a sales team of eight, increasing quarterly revenue by 34%
Step 2: Describe what you did
Next up, talk about what you did. Be specific about the role you played in the result. The recruiter will be most interested in what your exact contribution was to a task or project.
Good examples
- Built the editorial calendar, assigning briefs to eight freelancers and editing all copy
- Redesigned the customer onboarding flow by mapping out friction points
- Managed a $2.3M advertising budget across Google, Meta, and LinkedIn
Bad examples
- Built out the content process and managed writers
- Redesigned the customer onboarding experience with the product team
- Managed social media ad spend
Step 3: Add measurable results
Recruiters want more than just bold claims. They want evidence to support them. When detailing your accomplishments, it’s always worth adding in some solid metrics.
Show the reader what results you gained with numbers, statistics, or even timelines. Adding these details may seem like a small thing, but they can make a big impact.
- Cut response time from 11 hours to 2 hours by restructuring the ticketing workflow
- Grew the company's LinkedIn following from 4,000 to 31,000 in eight months
- Trained 14 junior account managers over two quarters
Step 4: Tailor to the job description
Using a one-size-fits all approach to your resume is a mistake. Whenever you’re applying for a new job, take the time to tailor the content of your application accordingly.
Start by looking at the job description and noting the “must have” criteria. Then, consider how your past accomplishments demonstrate the abilities the recruiter is looking for.
For instance, if the job description says “Must have: experience managing cross-functional teams," you need to clearly detail the experience you have, like this:
- Coordinated a 16-person team across product, engineering, and marketing
- Directed a cross-functional group to complete a merger integration
- Ran weekly syncs across four departments during a CRM rollout
Step 5: Turn responsibilities into accomplishments
Don’t know the difference between responsibilities and accomplishments? Responsibilities are what you had to do, and accomplishments are the results you gained.
To turn responsibilities into accomplishments, start with what you needed to do and then add a clear outcome. Quantify your results with metrics (when possible) to help you stand out.
Before | After |
|---|---|
Managed the company's social media accounts | Managed social media across four platforms, growing combined followers from 12,000 to 58,000 in nine months |
Responsible for training new staff members | Designed and dlivered a four-week training programme for 22 new hires |
Wrote content for the company blog | Published three SEO-optimised articles per week, lifting the blog's monthly organic traffic from 4,000 to 29,000 visits |
Supported the finance team with reporting | Built a suite of 12 automated financial reports in Excel, eliminating 11 hours of manual data entry per week |
33 accomplishment and achievement examples for your resume
Looking for some inspiration? We’ve got you covered. To help you better understand resume accomplishments, we’ve got 33 examples.
Professional accomplishments
Workplace achievements deserve a prime spot on your resume. These describe the results you delivered for your company in clear, quantifiable statements.
Here are 11 resume accomplishment examples as inspiration:
- Engineered a custom API integration between two incompatible payroll systems for a 600-person organization, cutting monthly processing time from 14 hours to 45 minutes
- Ran a mental health awareness campaign that reached 4.7M people across six countries
- Promoted from Sales Executive to Regional Sales Manager within 18 months after exceeding annual targets by 40%
- Completed Google's Advanced Data Analytics certification while working full-time, reducing manual data entry by six hours per week
- Secured $85,000 in funding by writing and submitting a grant application that positioned a theatre's outreach program as a measurable public health resource
- Authored a 6,000-word white paper on supply chain risk for a logistics trade publication
- Grew a LinkedIn newsletter from 0 to 14,000 subscribers in five months by publishing weekly breakdowns of employment law changes
- Secured features in Forbes, the Financial Times, and TechCrunch for a Series A funding announcement, generating 180,000 website visits in 72 hours
- Graduated top of a cohort of 240 on a Chartered Institute of Marketing diploma, receiving the highest-scoring final project
- Captained a regional wheelchair basketball team to a national championship, managing a squad of 11 players, and coordinating fixtures across a nine-month season
- Delivered a six-week cover letter writing workshop for a local refugee charity, supporting 34 participants, 19 of whom secured interviews within 30 days
Personal accomplishments
What you do in your spare time may impress a recruiter. But you have to make sure it’s entirely relevant to your career. Think of feats that show off skills pertinent to the vacancy. You can put these in a dedicated achievements section.
Let’s take a look at 11 examples below:
- Taught myself conversational Mandarin over 14 months using daily 30-minute practice sessions, reaching HSK Level 3 proficiency
- Completed the Marathon des Sables, a 250km ultramarathon across the Sahara Desert, finishing in the top 18% of 1,300 international competitors
- Wrote and self-published a 74,000-word novel over 11 months, selling 2,400 copies in the first year through organic word-of-mouth and a newsletter promotion
- Planned a solo six-month trip across 14 countries on a fixed budget of $6,000
- Founded a local running club that grew from 6 to 210 members in two years, organizing weekly routes, sourcing sponsorship from four local businesses
- Served as the main carer for a parent with a long-term illness for three years while working full-time, coordinating medical appointments across five specialists
- Project-managed a full kitchen renovation across eight weeks, sourcing four contractors, keeping the build within a $22,000 budget
- Recorded and independently released an EP of six original compositions, handling all production, mixing, and distribution, accumulating 41,000 streams across platforms
- Organized a charity cycling event from scratch, recruiting 60 participants, negotiating a route permit with two local councils, and raising $27,000
- Picked up the piano at 38 with no prior musical background, practising for 45 minutes each morning before work
- Advocated for a child with autism through school tribunal processes, leading specialist teaching support, reducing the child's school absence rate from 60% to 11%
Academic achievements
If you are fresh out of education or even still studying, your academic achievements are highly relevant. Consider what feats are likely to impress a recruiter along with the demands of the job.
Slide these in your education section, below the corresponding certificate or qualification. You can add them as bullet points to offer more detail regarding your academic pursuits.
Here are 11 more resume achievement examples:
- Graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Biochemistry finishing in the top 4% of a cohort of 320 students
- Wrote a master's dissertation examining antibiotic resistance patterns in hospital settings, which was accepted in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
- Won a fully funded Chevening Scholarship from over 65,000 applicants worldwide, covering tuition, living costs, and travel for the full academic year
- Scored in the 99th percentile on the LSAT on a first attempt after eight weeks of self-directed preparation, gaining admission to four of the five law schools
- Represented the university at the national Model United Nations championship, leading a six-person delegation that won Best Position Paper
- Designed an independent research study on sleep deprivation and decision-making in shift workers, collecting data from 140 participants
- Finished a four-year Computer Science degree in three years while working 20 hours per week, maintaining a GPA of 3.9
- Tutored 12 fellow students in statistics during the second year of a Mathematics degree, all of which passed their resit exams
- Founded and ran the university's first debate society, recruiting 80 members in the first term and reaching the national university debate finals in the society's second year
- Passed all three levels of the CFA exam on the first attempt, a sequence fewer than 10% of candidates complete without a resit, while working full-time
- Studied abroad at Sciences Po in Paris for a full academic year entirely in French, achieving marks in the top 15% of the cohort, completing exams in a second language
20 accomplishment and achievement examples by profession
Of course, the resume accomplishments you include will depend largely on your field of work. For that reason, we’re sharing a selection of key examples, listed by industry.
Profession/Level | Example of achievements |
Student |
|
Fresher |
|
Sales |
|
Marketing |
|
Human Resources |
|
Now that we've seen many examples of how you can add achievements to your resume, let's take a look at how it all comes together in the context of this marketing director resume below.
You'll see each part of this resume is proving the leadership and senior management skills a person at the level of 'senior marketing director' should showcase, along with all the value he has brought to the companies he was part of.
Resume example featuring accomplishments and achievements
Chicago IL
•
s.derek@example.com
•
0002 00001 0034
•
Marketing Director with 12 years of experience driving revenue growth for B2B technology and SaaS companies. Specializes in demand generation, brand positioning, and building high-performance marketing teams. Promoted three times in eight years across two organizations. Proven track record of translating strategy into pipeline.
Marketing Director | Nexloft Technologies
2026
-2022
Chicago, IL
- Increased pipeline from $1.4M to $5.2M over three years by introducing new strategies across 200 target accounts
- Rebuilt the content strategy from scratch, targeting 100+ high-intent keywords, publishing four long-form pieces per month
- Led a team of nine marketers delivering weekly performance reviews, and a structured onboarding program
- Eearned 24 pieces of media coverage in 12 months, including features in The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and Forbes
Senior Marketing Manager | Bridgepoint Software
2022
-2019
Austin, TX
- Promoted from Marketing Manager to Senior Marketing Manager within 14 months after exceeding all KPIs
- Managed a $280,000 annual events budget across six conferences
- Authored a 7,000-word industry report on procurement technology trends, leading to 5000+ downloads and new leads
- Launched the company's first email advertising program, leading to an increase of 15% in leads
BA (Hons) Marketing
2016
-2013
University of Michigan
- Graduated in the top 5% of a cohort of 260 students
Digital Marketing
Sales
Social Media Advertising
Leadership
Fundraising
Brand positioning
Demand generation
Google Analytics 4 Certification
HubSpot Revenue Marketing Certification
Summary: Make your achievements work for your resume
Recruiters tend to favor candidates who clearly demonstrate their accomplishments, so it is important to highlight these throughout your resume—whether in your summary, work experience, education, or a dedicated achievements section. Focus on including results that are directly relevant to the role you are applying for, and support them with concrete metrics or evidence whenever possible.
Use Jobseeker’s resume creation tool to test out different resume formats and effortlessly create a document highlighting your achievements.
FAQ: Resume accomplishments
How many accomplishments/achievements should I include on a resume?
There’s no capped number.
However, be sure to only include the resume accomplishments that are relevant to the job. Each statement should add value to your application.
What if I don’t have any accomplishments for my resume?
Nearly everyone has quantifiable accomplishments.
Try thinking outside of the box, for example:
- Saved company time
- The volume of your tasks
- Exam results and time taken
- Customer satisfaction ratings
- Approximate cost savings
- Speed of tasks completed
What is an example of a big accomplishment I should include on my resume?
The answer depends on your career history.
The best example you can share is one that speaks directly to the role you’re applying for. Check the job description to see which resume accomplishments are most relevant.
How to list achievements as a student or fresher?
As a student or recent graduate, chances are you don’t have much work experience. You can include resume accomplishments in your education section.
List them as metric-driven bullet points below the corresponding qualification.
What’s the difference between achievements, responsibilities, and awards on a resume?
Don’t confuse these three terms. Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Achievements include tangible outcomes that are likely to impress recruiters.
- Responsibilities simply describe what you had to do as part of your role.
- Awards are formal recognition given to you by an external body, employer, or institution.
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