Skills and Experience
Experience
Experience, or accomplishments are a reflection of your skills, expertise, and dedication. They are the tangible evidence of your hard work and achievements. When you discuss your accomplishments, you showcase your potential and highlight your capabilities to potential employers.
Effectively sharing your accomplishments demonstrates your ability to set goals and meet them. It showcases your determination, problem-solving skills, and ability to overcome challenges. By discussing your accomplishments, you prove that you are not only capable but also driven and results-oriented.
Understanding the significance of stating your accomplishments is crucial. It allows you to present a compelling narrative of your professional journey, demonstrating your value to employers. Remember, your accomplishments are the solid proof of your capabilities and deserve to be proudly shared during interviews.
It's pen and paper time. The following is an exercise you can do to help create a list of accomplishments.
Step one: Brainstorm some times that you have been proud and make a list. It doesn't have to be dedicated to IT, these are accomplishments we are going to showcase. Try to think of four or five times you have been really proud of what you have done.
Step two: Now add to this list what your exact contributions to these accomplishments were. For example, one of my proudest accomplishments was being awarded Best Career Services of the Year. I feel my biggest contribution to achieving this recognition was to always do my best for the students I work with each day. In particular making sure they knew that they mattered.
Step three: This part of the exercise helps you to formulate your accomplishments into a narrative format. Storytelling is going to be the next step we talk about after we finish the Descriptives. We are taking these accomplishments and outlining them into a story.
Step Four: Summarize the outcome. Are you seeing any patterns? Common tasks that you did for the accomplishments you can count as strengths? Common titles? You can use these predominant themes as your descriptives.
A simple piece of advice I picked up from a book I was recently reading about presenting with confidence, was to plan how to begin and how to end your story. It saves us from floundering near the end and allows us to finish with a flourish.
How did you do? Here is what you should have in your notes so far:
Mindset Checkin and NGT Factor
List of five values
List of three workplace values
A List of your top skills
A skills map
Your top four to five accomplishments with the beginnings of a story and common themes