Write Accomplishments on Your Compliance Resume

Why write an achievement?

One of the key indicators that separates great resumes from OK resumes is achievement. Based on our experience, we strongly recommend that you include achievements in your CV. This doesn’t just apply to compliance as a profession, achievements are important in any industry. Perhaps the reason we feel so strongly about including achievements on your CV is because they provide an immediate indicator of the quality of an applicant. An achievement can make dividing up who you want to shortlist for an interview and who you’ll turn down an easier task for any given fulfillment job. Logically, if there are five or six candidates who have taken the time to list at least one impressive achievement on their resume, and ten to twelve resumes that provide a simple description of their duties, any recruiter or hiring manager will be drawn to you. High achievers first (provided they have relevant backgrounds).

We appreciate that it is generally the Chief Compliance Officers who have the most accomplishments or opportunities to present themselves in a positive light, i.e. “Over a 10-month period, you integrated a new Charles River Compliance system that improved the capture and resolution of commercial errors to 32%”. As a compliance assistant/associate early in your career, you need time to develop your accomplishments that are specifically job-related, but don’t worry, accomplishments don’t have to be purely job-related. I know there may be people screaming at the screen right now saying “but this is about showing achievements that can show how someone has increased profits or reduced costs for their employer.” We agree this is important, but if you can’t prove it right now, you can still write something that will set you apart from other applicants looking for the same job.

How do I write an achievement?

Let’s clarify how to write an achievement. It’s not:

“You can work well in a team or individually”

“I worked from 9 am to 5 pm every day of the week for a period of 2 years at Global Bank”

“Bathroom visits reduced to 1 per day to increase time spent monitoring compliance”

An achievement needs:

1. Solve a problem

2. Demonstrate a specific skill

3. Be measurable

An example of an achievement not related to work or college might be:

“During college I realized my fellow students weren’t drinking enough beer. In 2008 I founded the Beer Society and grew membership from zero to 300 in a 12 month period. Beer sales in the local area increased 100% from £1m a year to £2m a year. I achieved this using guerrilla marketing techniques such as people stamping and beer drinking contests at the local student union.”

Forgive us for this particular analogy, but it does highlight some important aspects of writing a good achievement. What’s good about it?

• Highlight a problem

• Contains specific facts and figures

• Show the result of your work

• Demonstrates how the person achieved a positive outcome

Now this is hard to do. We can’t hide the obvious difficulty of making achievements stand out. If you have difficulty writing in this detail, you can shorten your achievements:

“I created and grew the Beer Society from zero members to 300 members over a 12 month period.”

This shorter version leaves you open to more questions like “What was the reason for founding the Beer Society” and “How did you achieve this growth in your membership?” Although sparse on details, it’s still a nice accomplishment because it allows you to highlight your positive traits in an interview. Just make sure you have more details in an interview situation so you can talk confidently about what you’ve accomplished.

Achievements that will help in your application for a compliance job include those related to (in no particular order):

• Managing conflict

• Communication with a wide range of people

• Work with detail and large volumes of data or information

• Strong IT skills

• Strong numerical ability

• Honesty in your work

These certainly seem to be required qualities in all compliance assistants, compliance managers, and chief compliance officers.

Where should an achievement go?

We think there’s only one answer to this: at the start of every job you’ve ever had. Don’t write achievements in a separate section, don’t highlight them by dividing your CV with duties, then achievements, integrate them into your duties and responsibilities and make sure achievements are listed first.

Be proud of what you have done. Whether you work in compliance or not, it’s important that your CV stands out from your fellow competitors in the job market.

We hope that this article has been useful to you and that you will follow our advice. Trust us, we’re former compliance recruiters (mwah ha ha ‘evil laugh’).