Describing Your Experience

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Be specific, accurate, focused, and precise. The duties and responsibilities of each position should be described in operational and quantifiable terms; yet, they should be accurate, distinct, and brief. State them so the person evaluating your application can visualize exactly what you did. Avoid long explanations when a brief description will suffice.

Use action verbs such as allocated, analyzed, audited, budgeted, conducted, developed, hired, managed, modified, researched, solved, trained, wrote.... Dictionaries, thesaurus', and Internet web sites are valuable references. Examples

Tell what you have done. Don't write a dissertation on the project or program; write about your role. You may include a few sentences to describe the complexity and scope of the project; but the main focus should be on your involvement in the work.

Don't take excerpts from position descriptions. Describe your work experience in your own words. Employees sometimes shortcut the work experience descriptions by summarizing their position descriptions. The position description is written to describe the typical incumbent and cannot reflect your strengths in the job. They may contain vague statements that do not begin to describe what you have done. This is your opportunity to tell how you performed a job.

Use clear statements with examples. Answer who, what, when, where, why, and how you performed your duties. Don't assume that others assign the same meaning to a phrase or term as you. Don't leave it to interpretation. If you coordinated a project, briefly describe your duties. Coordinating can be others performing the work while you consolidated the report or it can mean you were involved in conducting research, developing reports, making recommendations, and presenting the final product.

Emphasize accomplishments and qualifications. Your aim is to qualify for other positions by describing your duties, responsibilities, accomplishments, and education. Describe what you have done that was outstanding; include special assignments or projects. Give yourself credit for results or improvements. Don't forget to tell about awards or achievements you received for your work. Include any team leader or supervisory duties and responsibilities. Don't overlook special projects or assignments that may have been atypical of the work of your position. One example is a Secretary who coordinates the branch or division budget. Another example is a Biological Science Laboratory Technician who develops new laboratory procedures and trains others to use those techniques.

*** The EPA is an Equal Opportunity Employer ***

Describing Your Experience

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