How to state your impact in your work

One of the biggest mistakes I made when writing my resume was to list my work responsibilities and forget to state the impact I had on the success of a project. That was many years ago.

Recruiters are looking for the direct outcome of a project and the impact it has on the customer or the company.

They want to see the value you bring to the table. Simply stating your work responsibilities gives the recruiter no context whether you achieved your goals.

You should focus on the impact over the outcomes.

If you have data to support your stated impact, you should include those. Demonstrating the monetary or performance impact you had on a project would attract the recruiter.

You can use the following template to create meaningful impact statements.

<action verb> <noun> from <data> in order to/which led to <impact>

You might not always have an "in order to" or "which led to" statement, and that's perfectly fine as long as you include a bit of data to illustrate your impact.

Let's see a few examples.

Instead of "added keyboard navigation controls," you should state, "implemented keyboard navigation controls to comply with W3C accessibility standards."

This statement allows the recruiter to see the specific influence you had on the success of the product.

Instead of "improved SEO algorithm," you can state, "increased the accuracy of search index results by 20%."

And instead of "conducted a training session," you should state, "conducted a GIT training session for 50 developers."

Be as specific as possible and use data where appropriate.

Thanks for reading. Check out my latest resume to see how I stated my impact on my work.