by Alina Burakova 
May 31, 2023
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A good resume can mean the difference between landing a job and losing it. You want to present yourself on the resume so that your employers can get to know your type of professional. Whether it’s a rolling admission vs regular decision, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is having an excellent resume that will rock both seasons!
The words you use in your resume should tell your employers if you are a doer or an achiever. If you’re currently applying for jobs, it’s important to be aware of doer vs achiever terms.
In this article, we will explore the basics of doer vs achiever and aim to understand the differences between them for using on a resume. We’ll also take a look at some examples along the way to clear your understanding of the matter.
Often times when talking about doer vs achiever, we confuse them and think they are the same thing. But there are key differences between the two doer vs achiever words.
Both resumes will have the same basic information, but they will focus on different aspects of previous jobs. Many people ask, what’s wrong with being a doer vs achiever? There’s nothing wrong at all. These two resumes highlight different things. That’s all there is to it.
To better understand these two topics, let’s look at both Doer vs achiever resumes separately.
Like the literal meaning of the word, a doer is someone who does. This means in a resume doer vs achiever, the doer resume will have things that highlight responsibilities and duties that someone had in their previous jobs.
These can also be skills that you have and are capable of doing. A typical doer resume will talk about what you can do. But how does that benefit you? It doesn’t. Simply having done something isn’t going to persuade a hiring manager to pick you up as a new employee.
If you take the dictionary meaning of the word, an achiever is someone who has achievements. But how does that stack up in achiever vs doer resume? An achiever will highlight the achievements that they had in their last job.
An achiever is better equipped to persuade the hiring manager to hire them because of how they present themselves on their resume. When you take a look at an achiever vs doer resume, you will notice that an achiever looks to bring more to the table by talking about how their work benefitted their last employer.
This is the key difference between an achiever vs doer on resume. Achievers highlight their performance and accomplishments to their new employers through their resumes. And a really common way of doing that is by using examples and statistics.
But what exactly do we mean by that? Let’s consider an example. “In my last workplace, I was responsible for increasing the annual sales of the company by 15%. I accomplished this by bringing in 400 new clients in 6 months”.
This is the kind of language that an achiever would use. But when it’s doer vs achiever, a doer would simply state that they brought new clients, and that was it. If you were in charge of hiring, who would you pick?
Another thing that goes without saying is that you need to avoid grammar mistakes in resumes. We have tips on how to avoid those that you should check out.
If you’re writing a doer vs achiever resume, you will be focusing on your previous work experiences. This will include the positions and things you were dealing with in your last job. Doer resumes will include details about the duties you had and details of your day-to-day work.
To get the most out of your doer resume, you would need to compensate for the lack of descriptive achievements by customizing the posted descriptions to suit the new position’s requirements. Highlighting your skills is a great way of doing that.
Since you’re not bringing any examples to the table, you need to fill your resume with all the responsibilities that you’ve had in your last job. If you’re currently employed, add the responsibilities that you’re in charge of at present.
As you’re going to be mentioning only the hard facts, you should have a good cover letter to support your resume. Often, a question gets asked application letter vs cover letter, which one’s better? You should go for a bomb cover letter because you want to highlight everything in your resume. To know more about their particular usefulness, click here.
If you’re writing the resume as an achiever vs doer , you will want to highlight your achievements. But you also want to specify exactly what you did and what you excelled in. You can provide different metrics of success to prove to the hiring manager why they should hire you.
Your target as an achiever vs doer should be to point out the benefits that you can bring to the organization. The hiring manager should feel that you are the catalyst for the long-needed improvement in the company.
Think of why a company would hire you. When you think of the answer to that question, that should give you the things you need to put down on your resume.
You might not have a habit of doing this part, but you need to have an attitude that has you brag about yourself. This is one of the key points that you have to hit if you want to make a kick-ass resume. We have an article on that, which you can check out!
In the case of doer vs achiever resume, there are certain words that you will find being used often. You can consider these words the key features of these resumes. Let’s take a look at them.
Doer resumes are direct and to the point. They don’t beat around the bush by including the history of things. To better express yourself, you must use doer vs achiever words. What are some of these words? Let’s check them out.
Achievers don’t want to use rigid or strict words that limit their potential. That’s why on a resume achiever vs doer, you will find more suggestive words. These words only hint at the potential you aim to bring.
By using suggestive and flexible words, you don’t tie down your potential and limit the things that you bring to the table. Here is a list of achiever words that are commonly used in achiever vs doer resumes.
Here, we will include two doer vs achiever examples of what a resume should look like. These should help clear out any confusions that you may have. If you need help writing your essays, check out our article about the cost of resume writing services to find one that’s perfect for you.
Let’s start off with a doer resume and then look at an achiever one.
John Clint
Atlanta, Georgia
(404) 223-7567
Professional Summary
Experienced, dedicated customer services representative with over 8 years of experience in the information and technology industry. Skilled in negotiations and a group leader, I’m looking for an advanced customer service role.
Relevant Professional Experience
Customer services team lead
GH InfoTech
Roswell, Georgia
August 2017–September 2019
Customer services representative
DataTech
Augusta, Georgia
Jan 2013–July 2016
Education
Bachelor of Science in Information and Technology
Georgia State University
Atlanta, Georgia
May 2013
Skills
Now let’s take a look at the same resume, but this time from the achiever’s perspective.
John Clint
Atlanta, Georgia
(404) 223-7567
Professional Summary
Experienced, dedicated customer services representative with over eight years of proven success in the IT industry. Skilled in leading teams and improving customer service policies, ensuring an increase in the renewal rate among current customers.
Relevant Professional Experience
Customer services team lead
GH InfoTech
Roswell, Georgia
August 2017–September 2019
DataTech
Augusta, Georgia
Jan 2013–July 2016
Education
Associate of Arts in communication
Eastern Augusta Community College
Augusta, Georgia
May 2013
Skills
How do I change my resume from Doer to achiever?
You can use numbers as a way of quantifying your achievements. Using descriptive words is also a great way to showcase your achievements. When your achievements are related to your work, that reflects positively on you. Keeping these points in mind, you can easily convert your Doer resume into an achiever one.
What counts as achievement on a resume?
Anything that you did in your last job that brought about a radical change can be regarded as an achievement. You need to showcase how your contribution brought about the change.
How do you put achievements on a resume?
You need to provide numbers and use suggestive words to highlight your achievements. By providing success metrics and examples, you can easily show off all of your achievements in your resume.
What is a Doer job?
A Doer job is a job that has a fixed set of responsibilities. You are given duty, and you fulfil that to the letter. That’s all there is to it.
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