How to Answer ‘What Is Your Greatest Accomplishment?’

During an interview, a hiring manager is evaluating not only a candidate’s skills and abilities but also their personality to determine how well they will fit within the organization. By asking this question, the hiring manager can see if your accomplishments and work ethic aligns with the needs of the organization. Based on your response, they can also determine what you consider important as an employee.

Learn more: 7 Situational Interview Questions to Prepare For

Follow these steps to help you respond to questions about your greatest accomplishments:

1. Make a list of your accomplishments

Start by making a list of all your accomplishments in the workplace. This can help you have specific accomplishments in mind that you could refer to based on what you’re discussing in the interview. If you find it difficult to think of specific accomplishments, consider times that you’ve been recognized for your work. If you’re a recent graduate, you may want to think about volunteer work that you’ve participated in or even academic accomplishments that you’re proud of.

2. Quantify your accomplishment

A simple way that you can show a potential employer what you’re capable of is to quantify your accomplishment. In other words, associate your accomplishment with a specific percentage or dollar amount. However, if you can’t quantify your accomplishment, avoid the temptation to stretch the truth or claim that you did something you didn’t.

3. Do your research

Next, it’s important to understand the company to get a better understanding of what the hiring manager values or is looking for in a candidate. You should review the job description, any social media sites, the company website, and any employee reviews you can find online. This research can help you to identify a story that’s targeted to what the company needs.

For example, if you notice that taking ownership of projects and exceeding expectations is a core value for the company you’re interviewing with, you might choose to tell the hiring manager about a time you stepped up to take responsibility for something, even when it may not have been your responsibility.

4. Structure your answer effectively

While finding an accomplishment that’s relevant to what the company is looking for is an important first step, how you structure your story is also something you should consider. The way to best accomplish this is by using the STAR method. Using this method, you talk about the situation or problem you were facing, the task or role you played within the situation, the action you took to solve the problem, and the result you achieved.

Learn more: How to Prepare for a Behavioral Interview

Here are a few example answers to questions about your accomplishments:

Example 1

In my last job, our senior web developer had to take time off unexpectedly. Unfortunately, he had been leading a client project that was due in a week and no one else was as familiar with the client or could code at his level. Since I had led similar projects before, I offered to help get it finished. I assigned a few new team members to the project and worked through a weekend to bring myself up to speed. However, in the end, we completed the project a day in advance and the client was thrilled with the end result.

Example 2

My greatest accomplishment was finishing college at the top of my class while holding a full-time job. There were times that I had to put in 18-hour days to get everything done. However, I’m proud of the fact that I got through it and excelled. The whole experience taught me how to effectively manage and prioritize my time.

Example 3

In my last job, I was able to exceed my quota by 20% consistently month after month. My consistency and effort were rewarded with a promotion after just four months.

Example 4

In my last position, I negotiated with a new supplier to lower the cost of the raw materials we purchased to make our products. This ultimately saved the company thousands of dollars a year in materials and lowered our cost of goods sold, which had a big impact on company profitability.

Example 5

My greatest accomplishment was my promotion last year to manager. I began my career in fast food washing dishes and worked my way up into a management role in just four years. I attribute this accomplishment to my willingness to work overtime and help out wherever needed while learning all I can about the business.

Example 6

In my first job out of college, I was tasked with managing a company’s social media channels. However, the content wasn’t interesting and no one was engaging with us online. I started making short, funny videos around the office, showing what we did as a company while humanizing the brand. We went from 100 followers to over 5,000 within one year and social media is now a steady channel for generating sales leads.

Example 7

My greatest accomplishment was developing a formal training program for the sales team in our last company. I shortened the time for onboarding by 50% and once our sales reps were out in the field, they started making sales on day one, which was unheard of before.

Example 8

The accomplishment that I’m most proud of is how rapidly I was promoted to the team lead position for our sales team. I was given the position after just four months and have since learned that it was because of my reliability, consistency, and strong leadership abilities.