Accomplishments Talk When Evaluating Candidates

How often have you read a candidate’s resume and the following lines of logic pop into your head?

“She was the VP Business Development at Acme Collections – I should hire her.”
“He was on that industry committee – he must know a lot of people.”
“He ran a site with over 400 staff – that’s impressive.”

Or you are in a face-to-face interview with a potential hire and you hear these lines:

“I’ve collected on all types of paper: credit card, utilities, student loan, healthcare – you name it, I’ve done it”
“I’m a seasoned pro. I’ve been selling in this industry for over 20 years.”
“I’m the best I.T. manager you’ll find. I know FACS, CUBS, and I even created my own system from scratch.”

None of the above are good reasons for employers to hire someone, or for candidates to expect a job offer. Employers and candidates alike must place a much greater emphasis on ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

When interviewing candidates, don’t be enamored with job titles, top former employers, or even number of people managed. These features do not speak to an individual’s skills, work ethic, cultural fit, or ability to achieve goals. Employers should spend much more time reviewing and probing a person’s achievements. Specifically, quantify the achievements, find out the “before” and “after,” how did the candidate pull it off (was it through analysis, pulling together a team, individual contribution, negotiation, project management, etc.?) A salesperson that brings in $3 million/year in fees may be less valuable than another who brings in half as much, if the higher earner is just milking old clients and not bringing in new business. A collection manager with tons of experience may not be your best pick if (s)he is underperforming on portfolios or has weak management skills.

I can’t tell you how many resumes I see that are totally lacking in accomplishments. The most frequent recommendation I make to candidates who ask me to critique their resume is “put in a lot more accomplishments and reduce everything else.” When I read resumes, I don’t care much about job descriptions and responsibilities. That does nothing to differentiate the candidate from the other 100 people vying for the same job. Rather, each job should list several accomplishments in different categories. Examples of categories include increasing revenue, decreasing expenses, improving productivity, client relations, customer service, and labor relations. Try to quantify accomplishments wherever possible using dollars, percentages or any other relevant measurement criteria.

A candidate that is able to show a broad mix of different types of accomplishments has a huge edge in the job search. The candidate should easily be able to discuss what the situation was like in the beginning, what (s)he did to change the situation, how (s)he did it, and what was the end result.

So forget about “who you know” or “what you do.” Focus on what was accomplished and how. For companies, the result will be a better quality hire. For job searchers, the result will be more job offers. Everybody wins with accomplishments.

Gary Zelamsky is a principal at Executive Alliance, a leading national recruitment firm that specializes in the debt collection and accounts receivable management industry. Gary supports clients with twenty-four years of corporate management experience. Most recently, he was VP of Customer Support for Cablevision, where he had staff and line responsibility for 2,000 employees in all call centers and collections groups for this Fortune 500 company.

Previously, Gary was a Senior VP with Viacom, and an Area VP with Comcast, where he had full P+L responsibility for cable TV systems in San Francisco and Philadelphia, respectively. These business units had revenues exceeding $300 million. Earlier in his career, Gary practiced as a CPA on Wall Street. He earned his MBA in Finance from New York University.