Highlighting Your Work Experience During COVID-19

Here are three practical and effective ways to update your resume with workplace experience, achievements, and accomplishments during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many workers had to divert their responsibilities to meet the pandemic's ever-changing demands. Responsibilities shifted, workplaces changed, and everyday obligations became more difficult. If you were to ask someone around you how the pandemic impacted their family, almost everyone would have an answer. Whether the impact was to your career, education, social life, or family, the pandemic has left many affected.

As career coaches, we at CCS saw a lot of changes in the workplace. Many corporations switched to remote platforms, adjusted their team, and shifted their strategies. While we are two years into this pandemic and many have adapted to the workplace changes, we want to be intentional about highlighting COVID-19 work experience on professional documents, including resumes and cover letters. Whether you plan to switch careers anytime soon or not, it’s important to be intentional about what impacts you made within your experience throughout the pandemic. 

Here are three ways to update your work experience to highlight your work impacts during the pandemic.

Share how you shifted your work responsibilities from in-person to virtual.

For those of us who worked in an office, a lot of us experienced first hand the rapid transition from in-person routines to online work. While still aiming for efficiency, we set up at home desks, took home desktops, and created Zoom accounts while working from home with children or isolated inside. Adjusting from in-person to virtual was a major new challenge, but presented many new learning opportunities for our culture. 

While navigating this transition, you might have worked with your peers or your teams to ensure a functional workspace. You might have contributed to solutions that helped create workplace conversations that normally happened in the lunch room. Including your in-person to virtual COVID-19 experience on your resume shows that you can meet the needs of in-person workspaces and remote jobs. Here is an example of how to include this responsibility on your resume: 

“Leveraged adaptable leadership to shift administrative responsibilities online, maximizing operational efficiency to continue driving and increasing sales amid the COVID-19 pandemic."

Include a metric to share how effective your responsibilities were during the pandemic.

We always encourage using metrics on your resume, explicitly highlighting your COVID-19 experience. Many places saw decreased sales and revenue due to the ever-changing economic state. If you were in a career that continued to drive sales, increase customer satisfaction, build strong relationships, and advance your company, you want to share that with future employers! 

Including metrics can feel overwhelming, but we have listed an example below to help you get started. Your role doesn't have to be in sales to create a compelling metric statement. We encourage you to think outside the box on where you saw changes in your company and use this example as a starting point: 

"Utilized sales strategy and digital marketing to drive revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing sales by 65% annually." 

Focus on workplace effectiveness, well-being, and how you catered to your team. 

Whether you shifted to virtual or came alongside your team during the chaotic months of quarantine, employers would love to see how you fostered team leadership during this season. This challenging season presented many opportunities to show how you adapted to the circumstances around us. You may have been leading your team or working alongside a team, but these efforts and strategies matter! 

There are many ways to include your work and leadership experience on your resume. Here is an example of how your can list it: 

"Developed unique strategies to increase workplace effectiveness and well-being, fostering strong team leadership skills throughout the continuously changing COVID-19 pandemic."

Your Experience is Valuable

Suppose you read this post and feel like the content and examples didn't pertain to your job roles, don't be discouraged! There are endless ways to incorporate COVID-19 experience and other experiences into your resume. Clarity Career Solutions wants to help you turn chaos into clarity, whether that's a resume, cover letter, or interview expertise. Reach out today, and our team of experts would be happy to assist!

Taylor Hardy
Content Strategist

Experienced writer and creator with Clarity Career Solutions. Leverages a background in Sales, Marketing, Graphic Design, and Social Media to connect with clients and launch them into a career that brings true passion.

Feeling stuck about incorporating more information into your resume? Set up a call with us today to chat about resumes, cover letters, and everything you need to know in the hiring process!