How to Talk About Your Best Work Achievement

Review the job posting and description and consider the skills and experiences that seem to be most important to the hiring company. Then review your work history and background to choose something that would be valuable to the new company. For example, if the company needs someone to grow their social media presence, and you did that for a previous employer, growing their followers from less than 1,000 to over 100,000. You might describe that project and the resulting increase in business as the best work achievement in your career.

Here are some other things to consider when you’re choosing an accomplishment to talk about during the interview.

• Consider your skills and abilities and select those that most easily transfer to the new job you are seeking.
• Frame your answer according to how you successfully influenced someone if the new position involves supervising other employees.
• Focus on showing how you improved one particular aspect of a business, such as efficiency, profitability, customer satisfaction, or employee communication. Hiring managers appreciate specific, concrete answers.
• Remember that even if you are new to the workforce, you can still have a significant achievement in life to share. Your answer could relate to something you accomplished as part of a student organization, internship, or volunteer opportunity.
• Prepare an answer in case the interviewer asks for an accomplishment from your personal life. Focus on a time when you set a goal, made a plan, and followed through to achieve it.

Consider these tips to answer this interview question:

• One way to describe your achievement is in the form of a story. The beginning of the story is a description of the problem you faced. The middle of the narrative is what steps you took to reach a solution and how you implemented them. The end of the story is the outcomes you achieved in fixing the problem and how you measured that success. When you rehearse your answer in this format, it’s easy to clearly and fluidly tell your story when the interviewer asks you what is the best achievement in your career.
• Instead of composing an answer on the spot, prepare a response so you can sound confident and decisive. After all, your working years probably include more than one accomplishment that you’re proud of, and you want to select something that resonates with the interviewer. Here are some tips for sharing the best work achievement in my career and relating it to the position you want.
• Choose an accomplishment for which you received some form of recognition. If you did something that got you a promotion or recognition in the community, that achievement will probably be a good choice for your best work achievement. Accomplishments that improved quality, saved your employer money or time, or increased profitability are also safe selections. If you are new to the workforce, choose something that shows your initiative, love for the community, or drive to succeed. No matter what you choose, remember to always connect it in some way to the position for which you are applying.

Saying the wrong thing or something inappropriate when you’re telling the story of the best achievement to this point in your career can negate the good impression you hope to make on the interviewer. Avoiding this is another reason practicing your response ahead of time is a good idea. Here are a few things to consider when you’re determining how to craft your answer to this kind of interview question.

• Avoid answering the wrong question. Listen carefully to the question the hiring manager asks. If the query specifies an achievement in your personal life, don’t share something work-related. Be ready with both a personal achievement and a work-related one. Asking for clarification can show that you are actively listening and ensure that you understand what information the interviewer is seeking.
• Avoid sharing an accomplishment from more than five years ago. Choose an accomplishment that happened within the last five years. Sharing things that happened further than that in the past could raise questions about why you don’t have a more recent achievement to share.
• Avoid a negative perspective. Share positive statements about the experience, what you learned from it, and how you plan to apply those lessons in the future. Even if challenges and obstacles got in your way while working toward your goal, address them only in terms of how you got past them. Avoid focusing on the barriers because that may appear to give too much weight to the negative.
• Avoid the temptation to embellish. Be truthful about your accomplishments.

As you prepare for your interview and practice your responses, it can help to look at some other well-crafted answers to questions about a significant achievement in life. They can help you assemble your answers based on your own life experiences. Here are some examples of how you might respond to questions about your most outstanding personal achievement or professional accomplishment.

Greatest achievement as a supervisor

If the job to which you are applying includes duties as a supervisor or manager of other employees, it’s a good idea to choose the greatest accomplishment related to that. Your answer can show your potential employer how your personnel management philosophy agrees with that of the new company.

Example: My greatest accomplishment is significantly reducing turnover in my department. Turnover is expensive, and hiring and training new hires takes time. I developed and implemented teambuilding activities and cross-training opportunities to give each person a greater understanding of what coworkers experience. As a result, annual turnover rates fell from 25% to 9% over two years.

Greatest achievement in a first job after college

Even if you don’t have many years of work experience, you can still develop a robust response to questions about your most significant work achievement. The question allows you to showcase your ambition and drive to succeed and how those traits can benefit the company.

Example: The greatest accomplishment in my career to date is improving my employer’s social media presence using the skills I brought to the job as a new graduate with up to date skills. The company had no one on staff who knew how to use social media to drive new business. With the strategies I implemented, the business’ online presence gained 10,000 new followers in six months. As a result, online sales increased by 150% in that same period.

Greatest achievement at the executive level

Reaching the highest level of management in your company is an accomplishment in and of itself. In your response to this question, select one area of the job and focus on achievement in that field. As the head of an agency, you have many options from which to choose.

Example: As a chief executive officer, I entered the position when profitability was at an all-time low. I led the senior management team in an aggressive effort to reduce expenses and carefully evaluate the product line to eliminate underperforming offerings. By the end of my second year in the position, profits were up by 35%.

Greatest achievement at an entry-level job

An entry-level job is the ideal proving ground to achieve your first professional goals. When you are ready to apply for a new job, show the hiring manager how you have made the best of your entry-level opportunity.

Example: My current job is an entry-level position in the company. When I started, it was challenging to remember everything I needed to know due to a lack of written standard operating procedures. I developed a manual so that other new employees would have something to look to when questions arise. As a result, the error rate on the first phase of production has dropped by 25%.

A well-prepared and focused statement describing your best work achievement is a valuable part of your job interview preparation. For more tips on preparing for your interview opportunity, visit us at Glassdoor.