Raise your hand if you feel like you’ve accomplished little to nothing in the past year—certainly nothing noteworthy enough to include in your resume.
If you raised your hand, this post is for you.
I can’t rule out the possibility some of you are lazy good-for-nothings who are content doing the bare minimum. But I can guarantee that at least a few of you suffer from the opposite problem—you’re high achievers who don’t recognize the value of your contribution.
When I was interviewing writer Karen Gray (see, “A resume 10 years in the writing: Interview with Karen Gray”) recently, she said something that really struck me:
For the past 10 years I have been pitifully, woefully overqualified for the three jobs that I’ve had… I gotta be honest, with the type of jobs that I’ve had—I make myself laugh when I say this—my major accomplishment was being able to get up in the morning and go do it.
I’ve noticed a related behavior with my high-performing UX designers. If I point out something they’ve done that’s really effective, professional, or creative—they’ll often give me a weird look and shrug it off, saying, “I was just doing my job.”
As a manager, I can tell you that the following behaviors are far from commonplace:
- Always meeting deadlines without having to be reminded
- Having ideas and immediately putting them into action
- Figuring out what needs to get done and doing it without waiting to be told
- Being prepared for meetings
- Creating meticulous, well-written documentation
- Learning the technology so you don’t have to ask for help
- Teaching other team members what you know
- Taking responsibility for problems that aren’t part of your job description
I can hear you thinking to yourself, “Seriously? This is what qualifies as high performer behavior these days? Standards have really slipped.”
The problem with people like you is that as soon as you master a skill, you no longer value it because it’s easy. You only value the work you find difficult or challenging—the work you’re not good at yet.
So let’s see… you’ve got work that’s easy—can’t put that on your resume—and the skills you’re working on that you still suck at—definitely can’t put that on your resume. Leaving you with exactly zero accomplishments.
Here’s the thing: even if you don’t value your accomplishments, there are plenty of people in the organization who do. Like the consumers of that meticulous documentation who didn’t have to go back to you with questions. Or the developers who never have to worry if you’re going to be a bottleneck. Or the team member who didn’t have to feel stupid because you took the time to explain everything to him.
As a manager, do I value my directs being prepared for meetings and meeting deadlines without being reminded? You bet I do. Behavior like that makes my life a whole lot easier and it makes me look like a genius because I know how to hire sharp folks.
Open your eyes. Get out of your self-centered little world and see the impact you’re having on the team and the organization. Take an objective look at your accomplishments and write them down!
And once you’ve done that, get the hell back into that overly self-critical head of yours and keep making me look good.