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I wonder whether the following bullets are appropriate to include in my resume:

  • Hired a new team member despite contrary spending guidelines
  • The team didn't split despite serious crisis
  • We kept our SCM tool of choice (so far!)

There are of course reasons why these 'accomplishments' may be worth discussing...

  • The hire had to be finally approved by a senior VP whose budget is several billion dollars! I didn't interact with this person, of course (I'm a first line manager). Rather, all my management chain was involved. I started this whole process, and gathered the first (lower-level) approvals. But that took quite some time and energy. 
  • There was a very serious crisis when our most senior developer left for the competition. The chances of the team breaking up were considered very high. This did not happen. I can definitely identify some actions that I implemented to lower this risk, but did I really accomplish anything? Maybe I simply over-reacted and exaggerated the risk...
  • We are getting strong pressure to switch to the source control magement tool that our company recommends. We resist because we consider that the one we're using is vastly superior. So I look for support around us, explain why we don't want to switch, and otherwise spend time defending against what I consider to be very bad choices by our company.

I have some other very positive accomplishments to include! But I worry that if I were to interview and explain the accomplishments above, this would sound very negative. Somehow, I feel like every positive accomplishment I can come up with is something the team did, not me. And that all I really did was to fight against our company. 

 
 
 
Or should I just remember that "management is boring, unsexy, repetitive tasks" (or something like this)? Would hiring managers see these 'accomplishments' positively?
 
 
 
Thanks for your input.

cynaus's picture
Training Badge

 For the second point, how about something like this?

* Rebuilt trust between managers, staff & the xyz department by building relationships & follow-through.

* Improved xyz department morale by leading team of four staff & implementing one on one’s.

You will need to say what the significant accomplishment was, followed by how. And briefly. You can always explain why during interview.