What you achieved, not what you did

A friend and former colleague is looking to return to the hospitality industry after a two-year break. She shared her resume with me, and while she is an incredible employee, her resume did not read nearly as well as it should.

The common mistake I find with many resumes (going back to my recruiter days), is that most people list simply what their common tasks were in their positions and forget to include their accomplishments from their prior roles.

For example, I presented to college students recently who expressed interests in applying their hospitality degrees to the food and beverage/restaurant side of the industry.

I asked the group these questions.

• “Who has worked in a restaurant before?” Eight out of twenty students raised their hands.
• “Who has held the position of server?” Six out of eight raised their hands.
• “Tell me about your experience as a server as I can only hire one of you?”

As we went around the room, five of the kids talked about taking orders, providing good service, clearing dishes and understanding the menu.

The sole student who stood out talked about this: 

After three months, I showed enough leadership to be assigned official trainer for the waitstaff. Many of these servers had been at the restaurant longer than me, so I needed to approach the interaction with them delicately. We developed a team approach together and formulated a training programme for all new hires. I increased the average check for my customers by 28%, by developing a dessert Upsell programme, and then was asked to roll out the programme to the other team members. By working with the kitchen staff I was able to create a system that shortened the delivery time for the food coming out to the customers.

Who would you hire?

Are you simply doing your job now? Can you do your job better by focusing on accomplishments? Keeping track of your achievements will not only help your resume (for those job seekers), but also positively contribute to your year-end review (for those not looking for a new position).

Bart Berkey

Author of the book “Most People Don’t” Bart Berkey started his career with Hyatt Hotels & Resorts before joining StaCite as VP –Sales; His current role (Senior Corporate Director, Eastern Region Global Sales Office with a luxury hotel company) allows him to lead a sales team that represents an entire portfolio to the brand's top group and transient customers.

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