Career coaches agree that it’s important to keep an accurate record of your executive successes in every job you’ve ever held. You may not recognize that these successes are the kinds of things you, as an executive, do every day. You probably don’t think of them as successes, because you are accused of delivering superior results in everything you do. However, recording your achievements is necessary to support your future promotions, job transfers, and selection for important new projects that can advance your career.
If you’re a top executive with a C-suite office, you may find it difficult to measure your successes. You may not be performing all the tasks your division oversees. You may have 10, 20, or 100 people reporting to you and working on various aspects of complex, widely distributed projects. If you can break down the projects your team is completing into major sections, then you can explain in various formats how your leadership directly affects the success of the project and its effects on your company’s bottom line.
How to keep an accurate record of your work history
There are several key ways you can keep track of your success as a CEO, CTO, or CMO. First, you need the right tools, but luckily, you can track your own successes with simple software you probably already have, including spreadsheets, word processing, and scanning.
in a spreadsheet
Your project managers have likely already given you project milestones and schedules. If you can enter them into a spreadsheet, you can also mark your own successes and leadership contributions to each project. Put a list of milestones down the left hand side and put headings across the top like “team members”, “budget”, “key obstacles”, “solutions developed”, “deliverables” and any other measurable that you think is relevant to the growth of your company. The more you can provide measurable and measurable results, with dollars gained, dollars saved, percentage increases or decreases in maintenance metrics, and any other key performance indicators (KPIs) that matter most to your business, the better prepared you will be to report on your business. successes when it comes time to evaluate your own performance.
In a word processing file
Sometimes, as an executive, the successes you need to record yourself are best kept in a word processing document. You can treat these personal files as narratives of your continued successes. Remember to record the elements of each project that you found easy, those that you found challenging, and the specific strategies that you employed to ensure that each project was a success. It may be worth keeping copies of these files on your home personal computer rather than your professional work computer, so you can be honest with yourself and keep records that are professionally and psychologically accurate.
In document scans
Files you may only access once or twice a year include your evaluations by your board or executive team. It pays to keep copies of these records somewhere you can quickly and easily access them. Their annual or semi-annual review documents are examples of these. You can easily scan them, and you’ll have exact copies of the kinds of comments your superiors are making about your job performance. Likewise, it makes sense to keep scanned electronic copies of any letters you receive from your clients, vendors, or professional associates. Often what people say about you carries more weight than what you can say about yourself.
Career coaches recommend using these records of your successes in preparing your executive resume and executive biography.
The purpose of keeping these records is twofold. You’ll first need to know for yourself or your successes at work when your annual review arrives. You want to report to your executive board or superiors on the types of leadership you have provided. Plus, when you’re looking for a transfer or promotion or a new executive position at another company, it’s helpful to have these data points at your fingertips. Your executive resume writer and executive career advisor will need to know this type of information to better guide the creation of your career portfolio. Furthermore, these successes form the meat of the kinds of answers you’ll have to give during the interviews you’ll be asked to participate in as you search for new executive positions. Having the record of your work successes at your fingertips when this time comes will make the process much easier and more comfortable for you, because you will already be used to talking about these types of executive achievements.
