September is International Update Your Resume Month. When was the last time you did an update? You know it’s time! 

Every September for International Update Yur Resume Month, at a minimum, you need to engage in career management and update this jawn. This is your reminder!

Reflect on your accomplishments in the past year. Can you quantify any of them with percentages, numbers, or dollars? 

Reflect on your accomplishments to help you prepare for your end-of-year performance review or get ready for your next success story. 

Did you receive any awards or honors, attend or speak at any conferences, file for a patent, write anything significant, complete a degree or certification?

No one can toot your horn better than you can.

Companies want you to help them save money, or save time, or make money.

There are different ways listed below you can frame your accomplishments.

Accomplishment Stories ( STAR Method)

• Situation – Describe the situation you were involved in 
• Task – Describe the task you had to complete
• Action – Describe the specific actions taken to accomplish the task
• Result – Describe the results of your actions and include anything that is quantifiable

Accomplishment Stories (SOAR Method)

• Situation
• Obstacle
• Action 
• Result

Accomplishment Stories (PAR Method)

• Problem
• Action
• Result

Accomplishment Stories (CAR Method)

• Challenge
• Action
• Result

Accomplishment Stories (PARADE Method)

• Problem
• Anticipated Consequence
• Role
• Action
• Decision-making Rationale
• End Result

When you write your accomplishments in bullet points under your work experience, you will start with a verb in the appropriate tense. Here is a list of over 300 verbs you can use and how to might mix present and past tense in your current job. 

To make your text more skimmable and scannable, make your bullet points one or two lines. Bullet points are not paragraphs that are punctuated (i.e., no period goes at the end). These mini headlines need to be short points to catch the reader’s attention.

When the bullet points are copied and pasted into LinkedIn, add white space between the bullet points so the numbers will pop out more to the human eye, and people can skim and scan before they decide if they will read carefully.

Make sure you copy and paste those bullet points from Word and not Google Docs as they will look a lot better. Trust me! I know this from experience.

Hopefully, these tips will help you when updating your resume! So, be like Larry the Cable Guy and Git-R-Done!