Many candidates think that employers just look for experience. Most times candidates overlook that most employers may give even more weight to accomplishments. Understanding how an employer views each will shed some light on the importance of both experience and accomplishments in your resume.

Hiring managers view experience as possessing the minimum skill level to accomplish a task. Demonstrating that you have 25 years of experience in a certain function says nothing about how well you've performed. You may have been performing at a minimal skill level for 25 years, or you may have been a guru for 25 years - a hiring manager can't determine how talented you are at a skill merely by the number of years you've been practicing it.

From most candidate's point of view however, unless you expect ageism, number of years of experience signifies greater skill. Candidates regularly assume that listing 25 years of experience performing a job function means that you're really good at that job.

Most hiring mangers and candidates don't interpret experience in the same way. In a sense, they aren't speaking the same language.

Hiring managers use experience as a proxy for minimum qualifications, but rarely hire a candidate who just meets the minimum (unless there's a talent shortage). Today, a hospital might hire a nurse with minimum qualifications, and in 1999 developers could find work if they could even spell Java. For most job openings in today's market, hiring managers can afford to be choosy - there's an oversupply of labor today.

Hiring managers use accomplishments as a predictor of future performance. While experience/skills tells a hiring manager what you've done, accomplishments tell a hiring manager what you are capable of doing in the future. However, not all accomplishments matter to a hiring manager. The accomplishments that a candidate is most proud of, may not matter to a hiring manager if it doesn't demonstrate solutions to their current problems. Learn more about experience vs accomplishments, and how to make both work to get your resume more attention ...

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Source: http://reCareered.blogspot.com