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5 Easy Steps To Create a Brag Book (with template)

• February 12, 2024

Bragging is a form of art. When done right, it can help you attract opportunities that humility can’t.

If you want to be a leader, self-promotion is a skill you must master .

That means being able to share your achievements with confidence. Not humble-bragging.

That’s where a brag book comes in. If you struggle to talk about your accomplishments.

A brag book could be perfect for you. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a brag book.

And everything you need to know about the art of bragging.

What is a Brag Book?

A brag book is a compilation of personal, professional, and educational achievements. 

It can help you keep track of your career growth to brag better.

And guide you during promotion requests , salary negotiations , and job interviews. 

A brag book can also help you snap out of moments of imposter syndrome by reminding you of your wins. 

A brag book could be either a physical book or an ebook.

What Should Be Included in a Brag Book?

A brag book should include achievements related to your professional goals, measurable data , and positive feedback you’ve received along the way. 

These achievements could include awards, project wins, promotions, educational milestones, military honors, and academic accolades. 

An up-to-date brag book can ensure that you have data ready to promote yourself should the need arise. 

What Does a Brag Book Look Like?

A brag book looks like a scrapbook for your professional wins. It highlights your top career milestones in a way that’s easy for you to refer to when needed. 

A good brag book showcases your success in a way that is streamlined, accurate, and detailed. 

How to Create a Brag Book

Now that you understand what a brag book is. Let’s discuss how to create one.

Step 1. Get to the bottom of any feelings of Imposter Syndrome 

Before you even think about creating a brag book. Address any feelings of being a fraud.

If this isn’t addressed first, imposter syndrome will make you downplay your achievements or discredit your work . 

Address imposter syndrome by challenging any limiting beliefs about yourself.

To help you with this, I recommend using an exercise we teach at NetWerk® called the “Interrogation Exercise.”

The Interrogation Exercise involves questioning any negative beliefs you have about yourself until you uncover the truth behind your insecurities.

Continue this line of questioning with yourself until you uncover the real reasons behind your limiting belief. 

Each additional question should bring you one step closer to the truth.  

Most importantly, the interrogation exercise will require honesty and self-awareness.  

Here are some questions to ask yourself to challenge your beliefs:

·                  Why do I believe this?

·                  What do the facts say?

·                  What else might be causing this?

·                  What proof do I have to support my belief?

·                  Did I assume positive intent?

·                  Is there a pattern here or is this just an isolated incident?  

Get to the bottom of any feelings of imposter syndrome before moving on to the other steps.

Step 2. Define what success means to you 

A brag book should showcase accomplishments that align with your career goals. This is why it’s important to define what success means to you.

This shouldn’t be confused with what success means to society or your family. If used correctly, a brag book can position you for opportunities that align with your definition of success.

Here are some questions to ask yourself if you’re unsure what success means to you.

Questions about Success

• What would bring me the most joy 10 years from now?
• Who do I consider successful?
• What can I learn from them?
• What aspects of their life do I admire most? 
• How important is a work-life balance?

Step 3.  Write down your accomplishments 

Once you’ve addressed your self-doubt and defined what success means to you. 

The next step is to write down your achievements in your brag book. 

Think back to what you’ve achieved in past jobs, internships, school projects, community groups, or volunteer work. 

Make sure this list is specific, measurable, and relevant to your long-term goals . 

And don’t hold back. Now’s not the time to be humble. Give yourself credit where credit is due. 

To help quantify your accomplishments, here are some questions to ask yourself: 

• What was the timeline?
• What did I reduce?
• What did I increase? 
• How often did I do this?
• How many people were impacted by this?

Quantifiable data will help you showcase your value in a way that delivers the most impact.  

Step 4. Keep your Brag Book handy 

Once your brag book is complete. It’s important to know when to refer to it. And to have your brag book with you when it matters.

Here are some good times to refer to your brag book:

• Promotion request meetings 
• Asking for a raise 
• Salary negotiation meetings
• Job interviews
• Consultations with prospective clients 
• High-profile business meetings
• Company-wide all-hands meetings
• Pitching to potential investors 

Step 5. Maintain your Brag Book

Creating a brag book is not a one-time activity. To see the benefits, you must continue to maintain it over time.

Update your brag book as your professional goals evolve and you have new victories. 

Set a calendar reminder to update your brag book at least once a quarter.

Here are examples of good times to update your brag book.

Brag Book Template

Now that you know the 5 steps to create a brag book, now is the time to take action. Here is a simple brag book template you can use to get started. 

Copy and paste this table into a document and save it to your computer. Then complete the table with your top professional achievements.

Final Thoughts 

Don’t let the fear of putting yourself out there cause you to miss opportunities.

Hopefully, this helps you understand how to create a brag book and put it into action .

If you’re not sure where to start, check out our NetWerk  Brag Book .

Our Brag Book will help you discover your unique selling points, walk you step by step through creating strategic brag bites, and reveal how to elegantly package your self-promotion.

If you’re underpaid, unappreciated, and undervalued at work, this  Brag Book  can be the most game-changing step you take in your career.

If you’re new here,  join our community  for free and get instant access to our  Free Career Center !

Give yourself grace as you get comfortable promoting yourself.

Over to You

What’s going into your brag book? Brag to us in the comments section @netwerkmovement for a chance to be featured!  

Remember, sharing is caring. Help us send this to someone struggling to put themselves out there.

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Job Search Library Categories

Applying for a job, career change, career planning, evaluating a job offer, interviewing, looking for a job, losing your job, social media, developing a brag book.

If it’s true that a picture is worth 1,000 words, why don’t jobseekers come to job interviews prepared to show and tell?

One of the best ways to do this is with a “brag book,” otherwise known as a portfolio, leave-behind, or interview presentation binder.

While portfolios are expected in certain “creative” professions, jobseekers in many more “traditional” fields could benefit from preparing a brag book to use in an interview.

Putting together a brag book is also an excellent way to prepare for a job interview, as it can be used to reflect on what knowledge, skills, and abilities will be most relevant for the targeted position.

A brag book is also an excellent confidence booster. There’s just something about seeing all of your accomplishments in print that boosts your confidence and self-esteem.

A brag book is useful in a job search to:

• Tangibly showcase your accomplishments
• Document the breadth/depth of your educational credentials, training, and professional development
• Set you apart from other candidates who are interviewed for the job
• Give you a “prop” to make you more comfortable answering questions in the interview
• Allow you to provide greater depth and detail about your qualifications than yoau can on the résumé alone

Posting a portfolio online can help set you apart from other candidates in a competitive job market. You can link to your digital portfolio on your LinkedIn profile as well as provide a link to the portfolio on your résumé.

The brag book is primarily designed to be used in the job interview — both to illustrate your qualifications and (possibly) as a leave-behind piece. Developing a customized brag book for use as a leave-behind can be a very effective strategy. It shows you prepared for the interview.

A brag book can also be used in your current job — for example, in a performance evaluation meeting or when requesting a raise and/or promotion.

Brag books support your qualifications as a candidate. The purpose of the brag book is to substantiate the information contained in your résumé and on your LinkedIn profile. Thus, your résumé and LinkedIn profile are the best place to start when compiling your brag book.

What to Put in Your Brag Book

How do you decide what to include in your brag book?

• Review your résumé and identify any portfolio pieces that could substantiate your education, experience, training, or other qualifications.
• Think about the responsibilities of the position you are seeking. Are there any skills that the position requires that you want to showcase your experience with — for example, writing, photography, social media, or leadership?

Here are some of the kinds of things you can put in your brag book:

Education/Training

• A copy of your college or university transcript
• Copies of the certificates or diplomas for trainings/workshops/degrees listed on your résumé
• Example of major class assignments — report, presentation, or project (for recent graduates)
• Documentation of knowledge of a foreign language (certificate, grade, or test result)

Work-Related Documentation

• Performance evaluations (or excerpts of evaluations) from supervisors or managers
• Work samples (projects, newsletters, photographs, case studies, proposals, surveys)
• Papers/reports/publications you’ve authored
• Samples of communication/writing skills (writing samples)
• Evidence of computer/multimedia skills
• Logs/lists/charts that document your performance
• Sales information — but make sure you are not disclosing confidential information
• 30-60-90 Day Plan — what you plan to do in the first 30, 60, and 90 days on the job in your new position

Awards and Honors

• If you mentioned an award on the résumé, include a copy of the certificate or photo of the trophy
• Photos of individual or team participation in an event or award
• Scholarships received

Feedback/Testimonials/Endorsements

• Include copies of any thank you letters you’ve received, including letters and emails from customers and/or co-workers
• Letters of recommendation from previous supervisors and managers
• List of references
• LinkedIn Recommendations — you can either select a few and put one on each page, or put together a page of Recommendation excerpts

Community or Organizational Involvement

• List of professional affiliations, including leadership roles
• Clubs or activities you’re involved with
• Photos of events you helped organize
• Newspaper clippings featuring you at work or your involvement in charity work or with a nonprofit organization

Other Documentation to Include

• Personal statement or philosophy
• LinkedIn summary
• Career overview (bio or list of positions/dates)
• Photographs of you in action (on the job, or involved in volunteer activities)
• Photo of you delivering a presentation

How to Create Your Brag Book

You can make an excellent hard copy (physical) brag book for under $30 — but you may decide to invest more, depending on how many pages/sections you include.

First, assemble any and all materials you are considering including in your brag book. Start a file of all of the documents that you may possibly want to include.

• If you don’t already have them, contact previous supervisors and request letters of recommendation.
• Call your college or university and request a copy of your transcript. Or check the school’s website — some allow you to order transcripts online. If you have to, pay for a certified copy of your transcript rather than logging into an online account and simply printing out a list of classes.

Next, review your materials to prioritize what to include.

Create a logical order and structure for your brag book. This can be reverse chronological or by section. Start with your most recent accomplishment and work backwards.

Your brag book should be 10-25 pages in length.

If it’s more than 20 pages, it should include a table of contents, listing the documents that are included (although you do not have to number the pages).

Consider creating sections to make it easy to navigate. If dividing the brag book into sections, use professional divider tabs. You can purchase these in an office supply store. Generally, a 5-tab or 8-tab configuration is sufficient.

You can purchase a view binder from an office supply store. Choose the most durable (heavy-duty) option they sell — and opt for the “D” ring style instead of the standard “O” ring. (This makes it easier to turn the pages.) A 1” or 1-1/2” size is sufficient to start.

Have a cover made for your portfolio. Title it “Professional Portfolio of [Your Name].”

This is easily done on Fiverr.com ( www.fiverr.com ). For $5, you can have a flat image designed. Search for an ebook cover designer. This one was designed by a designer named Vikiana ( www.fiverr.com/vikiana ). Send along a high resolution photo of yourself.

For an extra $20, you can get both a front and back cover, plus a spine design.

Purchase clear sheet protectors — the kind you can slip sheets of paper into. Either top-loading or side-loading sleeves will work. Purchase the heaviest (strongest) ones they have — and make sure they will hold 4-5 sheets of paper. (You will include multiple copies of each page in one sheet protector, so you can give a copy to the interviewer — at their request.)

Have color laser prints/copies made of your photos and documents — or, if you print them yourself, make sure you choose the highest quality setting on your printer. Color prints are preferable to black-and-white.

Do not, under any circumstance, include original documents in your brag book (except for your résumé). This way, if you are asked for your transcript, for example, you’re giving the interviewer a copy (one of several you’ve made), not your only copy (your original).

Take the time to “polish” the materials. For example, type a key phrase or phrase from a performance evaluation on a single sheet, listing the name of the supervisor who wrote it and the date of the review. This makes your brag book more “scannable.”

Design your pages. Don’t just include a photo — to be sure to put a description of what’s going on in the photo, who is in the photo (identify the scene/setting/participants), and your role. Use captions to explain/highlight the specific skills or experience you are emphasizing (if the item is not self-explanatory).

Proofread and edit carefully. Review all the materials in your brag book for typos, spelling, grammar, and formatting issues. Have a friend or family member proofread it too.

When possible, tailor your brag book specifically for a desired job. If you use a 3-ring binder with page protector sheets, you can simply insert the pages you want to include for a particular job interview. For example, if the position requires public speaking skills, include a photo of you delivering a presentation to a large crowd. If the position does not require presentation skills, then you could leave that page out.

For maximum results, personalize the portfolio — especially if it’s a leave-behind piece.

The first page should include some or all of the following information:

• Full contact information — your name, address, cell phone, email
• Your LinkedIn URL
• Job title and company name for the position being sought
• Your photo (either a professional photo or a photo of you at work)

A few more tips:

• Choose only the best examples of your work to include.
• Carefully cultivate items to include that provide concrete evidence of your skills.
• When in doubt, leave it out. If you are not sure if you should include a particular item, don’t put it in your portfolio.

Creating Online Brag Books

According to a 2012 survey conducted by Hams Interactive, 37% of hiring personnel use social websites to check on clients. A digital portfolio is one way to highlight what hiring managers will find about you online.

A digital or online version of a brag book has several advantages. Creating duplicate physical brag books is time intensive and can get expensive. Digital brag books can be copied and customized very easily. They are also easily shared with prospective employers. A digital brag book is also easier to keep updated.

Another advantage of a digital brag book is the multimedia capabilities — you can include video, audio files, photos, and document files.

One new, innovative way to create a brag book online is to use Pinterest ( www.pinterest.com ). Because Pinterest is a visual medium, search out images to represent career milestones — for example, a photo of you in a cap and gown with your diploma, and then a close-up of your diploma. Or a photo of you receiving a sales award, and then a scan of the award certificate. Pinterest also allows you to pin videos, so you can include a video of you making a presentation, for example.

Do you work with recognizable client companies? Assemble their logos in a collage labeled “Key Clients” or “Strategic Account Management.”

You can also create a PowerPoint presentation and save it as a PDF file that you can bring up on an iPad or other tablet device in a job interview. Here’s a PowerPoint presentation example:

Microsoft offers numerous free PowerPoint templates:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/powerpoint-templates-FX102828209.aspx

Using a Brag Book in an Interview

Before using a brag book in an interview, you will need to practice. Incorporate your brag book as part of your natural conversation. Role-play an interview with a friend, colleague, or family member, and practice referring to your brag book to answer questions.

At the beginning of the job interview, let the interviewer know you’ve prepared a “portfolio” that illustrates your qualifications and accomplishments. Offer to let him/her review it. If the interviewer declines, set it aside until you need it to illustrate a point or answer a question in the interview.

You can offer the brag book again at the conclusion of the interview. In general, you will not want to leave your brag book with the interviewer, unless you are specifically asked to do so. Being asked to leave it is a great sign that the interview went well.

However, don’t plan on getting a leave-behind brag book returned. If you don’t get offered the job, you can follow up and request the book back, but don’t be surprised if the interviewer can’t locate it, or says it’s been discarded. This happens. Instead, consider creating a specific leave-behind version of your brag book. You can have a bound book made at your local office supply store. Have your customized cover printed on cardstock, and have the book wire-bound or spiral-bound.

If you have not created a specific leave-behind portfolio and you are asked to leave a brag book with the interviewer, immediately start working on creating a replacement book. If you get the original book back, you’ll have a spare. This is also why it’s important not to include original photos or documents in your brag book.

Building your brag book from scratch will take some time, but you can start small and improve it over time. Keep it updated and when an opportunity presents itself, you’ll be ready to respond.

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Brag Book Essentials for Every Job Hunter

Brag Books , Finding a Job , Getting Hired , Interviewing Skills and Tips , Job Search , Job Search Success , Job Search Tips , Jobseekers

1    comments

Brag books (aka professional portfolios or kudos folders) are incredibly beneficial for your job search and interviews:  they boost your self-confidence and positive attitude, they help you deliver powerful interview answers, and they even act as a kind of a reference for you. All these things help nudge that hiring manager along the road to offering you the job. What are the brag book essentials you need to know?

What Goes In a Brag Book

A brag book can include just about anything you want:

• congratulatory notes (any notes that compliment you on what a great job you did – from bosses, co-workers, customers, or clients)
• annual performance reviews (if you include some, include them all)
• awards / rewards letters (any official recognition of a job well done)
• letters of recommendation (phone references are best, but written letters won’t hurt)
• types of equipment or software you’ve used or marketed
• certificates from career-relevant, completed educational courses or seminars
• financial or PowerPoint presentations
• copies of articles you’ve written
• brochures you’ve helped develop
• photos of projects you’ve completed
• your college transcript (ONLY if you’re just getting out)

Usually, these are put into page protectors and gathered into a binder for easy reference.

What Your Brag Book Does for You

All that evidence of your success is a great mood booster anytime the job search gets you down . It boosts your morale and attitude so you can be positive with employers.

Your Brag Book Is an Awesome Job Interview Resource

When you bring the brag book into the interview, it acts as evidence for you because it’s proof that you’ve done what you say you can do. Hiring is a risk for employers, so this is a big help.

It’s a great show-and-tell piece. You can show specific pages as examples to illustrate an answer to an interview question, or you can show it as a general example of the quality of your work.

A brag book sets you apart as someone who pays attention to details, who is achievement-oriented, and who cares about giving your best. It definitely provides an impressive “wow” factor.

A brag book will help you get hired.

Build Your Own Brag Book Today

Get my insider tips for creating and presenting your brag book in the interview in my Job Search Coaching Membership .

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Should you have a career coach, how to ace a video interview: manage the tech, present your best self, and avoid critical mistakes, leave a reply.

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Totally agree and it’s helped me stand out and be memorable in a group (especially if I wasn’t the ideal candidate) As a marketing person they don’t expect to see work samples so they are instantly impressed. It is too easy to lie on a resume, and big talkers can also be great at fooling interviewers too. I’ve interviewed too many people who I knew were faking it.

I save screenshots of any digital work I did since they all have a lifetime and don’t stay online long. I then write notes on the project and use STAR to capture potential talking points. Before I started doing this I struggled with remembering what I worked on, or the challenges of each project. Of course you have to be careful to not show work that is confidential, or you can replace names or numbers with other data, or gray out the confidential part.

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How to Use a Brag Book to Differentiate Yourself from the Competition

Posted by Matt | Apr 19, 2013 | Resume Building |

I know what you are thinking: mom told me that bragging is a bad thing.  I agree that in many situations bragging is not a trait that you want to be associated with.  In fact, word association may yield terms such as arrogant, audacious and egotistical.

However, I’d like to a make the claim that while in job search mode, if going about it in the right way, “bragging” might just be the key differentiator between getting the offer and coming in second place.  We all know what second place feels like in the interview process – no one remembers the bridesmaid, only the bride.

Talk About YOUR Accomplishments with Taste

The key here is to get clarity on your career accomplishments and get comfortable talking about them!  Yes, there have been many articles written on how to verbally convey your accomplishments during an interview (for example, the STAR methodology: answering a question by articulating the s ituation/ t ask, the a ction you took and end r esult).

Instead, the subject of this article is how to differentiate yourself by assembling a “brag book” as a leave- behind at the end of a job interview.  The brag book is best used during the interview process and not so much during the networking process (a bio is a better bet while networking; see this article for more information).

What is a brag book?

It’s a collection of documents that demonstrates and validates your candidacy as a professional in your field of expertise.  It is one stop shopping where you can reinforce to the interviewer that you are the real deal and not just a smooth talker!  After all, if you are pretty good at interviewing – you have practiced a lot, you understand that every interview question falls into one of three categories (Do I like you? Are you motivated? Can you do the job?), and you answer these questions clearly and concisely using the STAR methodology –  the interviewer will be impressed but may be wondering if you are all sizzle and no steak!   The brag book shows that there is substance behind your interview answers.

The brag book should be a polished piece bound by a presentation binder (or similar item found in your local office supply store).  It should include a table of contents.  All documents should be in a similar font with your name, contact information and page numbers.

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Here are some suggestions for key documents to be included in your very own brag book:

Table of Contents – includes your name and the position and company you are interviewing along with page numbers

Resume – tailored to the job for which you are interviewing

Bio – Your one page bio – see link above for more information

Professional Organizations – demonstrates that you get involved in your function/industry, that you are aware of best practices, or can quickly find out about best practices in your area of expertise and may show your leadership skills

Awards – shows your level of expertise and, likely, your willingness to go above and beyond

Letters of Recommendation – letters from former bosses, colleagues and mentors, etc. – powerful because what others say about you can be more impactful than what you say about yourself

Endorsements and Testimonials – gather all of the great things that have been said about you – examples include “great job” emails and LinkedIn recommendations

References – a list of key stakeholders who will vouch for you as an employee and person of character

Click Here to See an Example

Once assembled, you have a great leave behind to remind and reinforce to the interviewer who you are and what you bring to the party!  In summary, your brag book:

• Shows that there is substance behind your interview answers
• Provides a leave-behind to help the interviewer remember you
• Differentiates you from the competition
• Demonstrates by your effort that you are sincerely interested in the job

So what does the finished document actually look like?  In order to provide you with a template and some ideas, I’ve uploaded a sample into my LinkedIn profile.  Comments, questions, suggestions and success stories are always welcome.  In the meantime, get out there and differentiate yourself with your own brag book!

Lastly, if you’d like to attract top employers to your LinkedIn profile, check out Joshua’s LinkedIn Writing Service.

About The Author

Matthew Levy is a well-rounded HR professional with fifteen years of broad experience in both specialist (e.g., recruiting) and generalist (e.g., HR business partner) roles.

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14 Comments

Debbi Lloyd Thanks Debbi!

I crazy love this idea Joshua, will start to work on this project right away.   And to Rachelle R. thanks for the book tip.   Great blog.

What do you think of the idea of a multimedia bragbook, online?  A new site recently launched that offers this service at http://www.bragbookmm.com.  I think it can certainly help job seekers stand out and differentiate their candidacy.

A fresh idea, thanks.

There’s a book called How to Design, Write, and Compile a Brag Book that’s a really great resource. The book was written by teena rose. If you conduct an online search for teena rose and brag book, you’ll find her website … or, I suppose you could search for the above book title and find it that way. Good luck to you!

Rachelle, Teena does a great job. I’ve reviewed several of her books on this blog and recommend my readers to take advantage of her résumé writing services. I’m so glad you’ve found her too.

Great article and think this will be a great tool for me. I’ve also used a portfolio to show during interviews but a leave behind is better. What do you think of also including samples of work or 1 pager case studies on some larger projects/accomplishments?

This is a timely article for me… I have had a “Brag Book” for many years (then…Pharmaceutical Industry, to…Consultative Sales/Marketing/Project Management, now…????), but have never used it as a leave-behind tool!

As I am in the market for transitioning back into the corporate world, I definitely plan on using this idea!! I recently went on an interview with my brag book to find I was the only one who presented this for review. I had tagged pages that were applicable for that particular target job…but recreating a custom leave-behind would have been even more impressive!

Thanks, Greta

Matt, Great idea. A nice way to differentiate yourself from other candidates.

Joshua, Thanks so much for sharing! .-= Michael Sigler´s last blog .. Persistence results in rewards =-.

LOL I totally have one of these. Except I call it a “portfolio”. Brag Book sounds much cooler, though. .-= Marian Schembari´s last blog .. Some Long Overdue Publishing Info =-.

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Ways to Track and Present your Personal Sales Brag Book

What Is A Brag Book?

Nutshell.com defines a Brag Book as “a collection of testimonials, case studies, or pictures from satisfied customers. For example, a sales rep can present their brag book to prospects to illustrate their prior successes and how they’ve exceeded their client’s expectations.”

As someone in a sales position at a tech company, you know what your sales manager loves to see out of your key metrics. Those same metrics can be used when applying to future sales positions , and that’s why a brag book is an asset to your continued success.

Your brag book should contain records, key metrics, or verifiable numbers that speak to your skills. Include items like:

• Three years’ worth of sales figures, ranking reports, and awards
• Any standout accomplishments like “#1 sales rep” in the company
• Email examples that speak to your talent for communicating with active and prospective clients
• Three years’ worth of W-2s and YTD earnings to back up any sales claims you make

The key metrics can be broken into two categories: Quantity and Quality.

Quantity-driven metrics include:

• Accounts called
• Leads sources
• Opportunities

Quality-driven metrics include:

• Contacts sourced per account
• Calls per lead
• Unique leads called
• Connect Rate
• Demo to opportunity Conversion
• Calls per opportunity
• Connects per opportunity

How do you track those, where do you store them, and how do you present them to future hiring managers to ensure you get the job you deserve?

We have found some tools to help you track, store, and share your metrics accurately and somewhat variable way with future hiring managers as you advance your career.

Call Activity Scorecard

This call activity scorecard helps you set goals and track the number of calls you make each quarter, and how many conversions, opportunities created, and wins result from those calls.

Weekly Email Tracker

This easy weekly email tracker helps you track the number of emails, unique people emailed, how many new prospects are being contacted, the number of deals closed due to emails, etc.

Sales Activity Worksheet

This sales activity worksheet assists in tracking metrics like the number of hours worked per week, your weekly/monthly/quarterly goals, leads generated, the size of details, and contracts signed.

Rekener is a sales rep scorecard software provider that helps track leads, quotas, opportunity stages, and KPI trends.

Recording your metrics is an important habit that will pay off when it’s time to look for new sales opportunities. For example, when you sign up for an account on a job site like Rainmakers.co , your numbers and sales figures are displayed on your profile for companies looking to hire proven salespeople.

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How to Build an Accomplishment Journal / Brag Book

Being able to reflect on and then explain what you have learned and what you have achieved at work or in school can be as important for career advancement and personal growth as carrying out the work itself– sometimes, even more than the work. An Accomplishment Journal or Brag Book can help.

Introduction

Being able to reflect on and then explain what you have learned and what you have achieved at work or in school can be as important for career advancement and personal growth as carrying out the work itself– sometimes, even more than the work.

Maintaining a record of what you have worked on and what you have achieved is one of the simplest and most effective ways to make this reflection and communication easier. These Accomplishment Journals , or Brag Books , can help you plan your career and succeed in your current job and the jobs ahead.

This White Paper lays out the “what,” “why” and the “how” of maintaining an effective Accomplishment Journal or Brag Book, and provides templates you can download to start your own. For brevity’s sake, this document will refer to these documents as Accomplishment Journals

If you’re already sold on the idea, jump ahead to the Content of an Accomplishment Journal. 

This White Paper was workshopped during a Community Conversations webinar– Sema would like to extend our deep thanks to the participants for their great questions. 

What is an Accomplishment Journal / Brag Book

An Accomplishment Journal is a systematic way of keeping track of all of the things you've done.

At minimum Accomplishment Journals should include:

• All of the compliments and kudos you’ve received: from supervisors, from peers, from users, and from other stakeholders.
• Stories about individual moments where you were particularly successful, alone or in a group. Each story becomes a Journal Entry . These moments could include a piece of code you created at work or in an Open Source project, a feature that you and your team carried out, a school assignment, or even significant experiences in a school club or extracurricular activity.

Accomplishment Journals could also include Stories about moments that were not successful but were growthful to you. You may not share these stories on your resume but they are extremely useful for personal growth. The templates include notes on how to carry out the “Expanded” Accomplishment Journal , which includes setbacks as well as victories.

The Expanded Accomplishment Journal should include moments…

• Where you worked very hard, regardless of outcome– that’s where the most learning comes from.
• Where you found yourself getting mad, frustrated or disappointed. A negative emotional reaction is a clear sign that the experience did not meet your expectations– learn from it.

Accomplishment Journals work best when:

• They are updated regularly and frequently – more on what “regularly” means below 
• They are a comprehensive repository– you can go to one or two locations and find all Journal Entries and Kudos across work, school and extracurriculars/ hobbies.

Accomplishment Journals are not a resume and not polished . Resumes are a finished product, heavily edited and formatted, and intended to be shared. Resumes can – and should be! – updated based on your Journal as needed. It is likely that you will update your resume 1-2X per year, while an Accomplishment Journal might be updated monthly or even weekly.

An Accomplishment Journal is private to you . You may choose to share parts of all of it with others as part of formal or informal coaching, and you will “mine” the Journal for your resume. But the most important audience is you. 

Accomplishment Journals are also focused on your own contributions . Almost everything we do in school, work, and life is due to collaboration and contributions from others. But in an Accomplishment Journal, you need to highlight and specify your own contributions to the story you are telling: such as what you did directly, or how you coached or guided others. 

Think of it from an interviewer’s perspective: they need to understand how much of that team's success is due specifically to you (unless they are planning on hiring the whole team– that’s why consultancies put together group level Accomplishment Journals). In that interviewing moment, you need to explain your own contributions: what you did directly as an Individual Contributor and or how you advised, guided, led, or responded to others.

Given the above, an Accomplishment Journal system includes:

• Tooling : Creating a mechanism to store all kudos and Journal entries
• Timing : a regular cadence for adding Journal entries
• Template : a standard format for your Journal entries makes it easier to add as you go– so you can focus on the content, not the structure
• And maybe, Talking : If you are using your Journal for personal growth, find a buddy/ partner to review your Journals together

Why create an Accomplishment Journal

There are three good reasons to create an Accomplishment Journal.

• So you can read, not remember. It is much easier to read something than to try to remember it. Building a resume or preparing for an annual review is much harder when you have to recall all of the things you did over the last 6 or 12 months. By getting into a regular rhythm of creating “raw material” for those documents, the Accomplishment Journal lets you write more detailed, more powerful documents, more easily.
• Stories are more persuasive than data points. In tech we are used to digging into technical details, systems, and structures. Stories– which have a beginning, middle, and end like a novel, or provide context to the reader like a newspaper article– are a much easier way for humans to understand experiences. We’re probably hardwired for this. Journal Entries help turn your experiences into stories, and so you’ll be better equipped to include the most relevant ones in a resume, or talk about them in experiential interviews.
• Accomplishment Journals are a powerful tool in the fight against Impostor Syndrome . We all know about the feeling that maybe we don’t deserve to be here… and most of us have experienced it at one point or another. Just as stories are a good way to explain to others what we have done, so too, Accomplishment Journals can help demonstrate to yourself what you have achieved. It’s harder to look at a list of five, or ten, or twenty of your accomplishments, and kudos from your colleagues, and still believe you don’t belong.

Protip : if you are going to use your Accomplishment Journal as a way to fight Imposter Syndrome, it’s a very good idea to find a buddy to review it with you.

Reason number one, it is likely that they will be supportive and encouraging of you– we are almost always harder on ourselves than another person. 

Reason number two, by explaining your experiences, you are convincing yourself. Ever hear the expression: “when you’re talking, you’re persuading yourself”? In this case, talking about your experiences can convince you that you’re further along than you thought.

Applications for an Accomplishment Journal

Uses of the Journal fall into two categories: external, communicating with the world, and internal, learning about yourself. There are five total reasons.

The most common external use of a Journal is updating your resume (#1) . Having a good list of things you've achieved makes it much easier to keep your resume fresh and provide stories that readers will find compelling.

A second external use case is annual performance reviews (#2) , otherwise known as the Perf process. Journal entries can be used not only for your own advancement but also to help your friends and colleagues when they need references. It is a huge gift to be able to provide specific, detailed moments for your colleagues when they need to make the case for their promotion.

The third external use case is interviewing (#3) , especially when experiential interviews are involved.

Experiential interviews are when an interviewer asks you to explain previous moments, or experiences, from your past. What they are looking for is stories that demonstrate success, hard work, or growth… exactly what you are keeping track of in your Journal Entries.

A common experiential interview format is:

Tell me about a time when you worked on something really hard. What made it difficult? What did you do? And what happened as a result? 

Being as detailed as possible in Journal Entries, and keeping track of the kudos as external validation of these stories, makes preparing for interviews much easier.

Those are the external uses for an Accomplishment Journal. There are two important internal reasons, too.

One is fighting Impostor Syndrome (#4) , as discussed above.

The other is self-exploration and planning your career (#5) . Accomplishment Journals are a great tool for interpreting your own journey: for figuring out what you did and didn’t like about your past experiences, looking for patterns of what those moments had in common, and then using that information to seek out life and work experiences that are a better and better match for what matters to you.

The best career advice and planning is extremely idiosyncratic– you are not a demographic category, you are not a cohort, you are one in 7.753 billion (at the moment). There is nothing more useful to your career planning than your own interpretation of what you liked, and didn’t like, and why.

Pro tip : The Expanded Accomplishment Journal, with stories of hard work but less success, and with frustrating moments, are really important if you’re going to use your Accomplishment Journal for self-exploration.

This is about bragging? Yuck.

OK, first the good news.

If building a bragging document sounds unpleasant to you… congratulations. That speaks well of your groundedness and the awareness of how much people working together are responsible for a project’s, team’s, and organization’s success.

Now the bad news.

You’ll need to find a way to keep track of your accomplishments anyway.

An Accomplishment Journal is the best tool you have to provide specific data to make the case for advancement and new jobs.

And it’s one of the best methods you have for personal growth.

So how can you overcome your concerns? Here are a few tips that might work.

• Don’t call it a Brag Book. Accomplishment Journal works just fine, or professional journal, or anything that works for you.
• Imagine the advice you’d give to a friend who was concerned about bragging. Would you tell them that they were being conceited to keep track of what they had accomplished? More likely, you’d share the same arguments here. Imagine giving advice to a friend instead of yourself is a really good hack to make sure you’re being fair to yourself.
• Commit to yourself that you’ll use this for personal growth as well as career advancement- and set aside regular time, alone or with a friend.

The Content of an Accomplishment Journal

Now that we’ve covered the what and the why, let’s talk about the how.

As mentioned above, Accomplishment Journals should include all of the compliments you’ve received, and Journal Entries about each accomplishment. We’ll consider the Kudos Collection first and then turn to two options for how you can structure the Journal Entries: Newspaper Articles and Logic Models. Along the way, we’ll explain the Hierarchy of Success: what data points matter more than others when explaining your accomplishments.

The goal of a consistent structure is to remove the mental energy associated with how you’ll structure your thoughts so you can focus on what to say.

Google templates for the two types of Journal Entries are available here . 

Kudos Collection

Every time you get positive feedback from someone, you should save it in a folder or in a document. Think “single source of truth” for all compliments.

Make sure it covers feedback from all channels - email, Slack, code reviews. If it’s verbal, do your best to transcribe it verbatim and add it to the collection the same day. If it's a virtual meeting, get it transcribed and save it. 

Make sure it covers all people you interact with – your boss, your professor, your colleagues, your code reviewers, your mentors, customers, and end users. 

And, if you haven’t already, develop a sense of curiosity about the “ next level of feedback ” and start collecting evidence of that too. Next level of feedback is about what happens after the immediate success of the project or activity.

The feature was shipped on time… great. What happened to user adoption or retention? A refactoring was completed in the first half of the year… What was the impact to the organization in the second half? How happy are users? If you have access to these metrics already, soak them up. If you don’t, ask your manager – they are likely to be delighted to share them with someone who wants to understand the next level of impact.

Pro tip : having a hard day, a hard week? The Kudos Collection is an amazing pick-me-up.

Journal Entry Type 1: Newspaper Article

In the Newspaper Article format for Journal Entries, you should imagine yourself serving as an impartial observer writing up your accomplishment.

The Entry should answer:

• Who was involved? (Team members, clients, stakeholders, managers, etc.)
• What is the problem/situation you were trying to address? 
• Did anything make the work particularly hard? Explaining the difficulty level is important because it shows the listener how much work was necessary to achieve the result. 
• How did you solve it? What steps did you take, and what steps did others take?  Friendly reminder to Devs: it’s not just about the coding! Planning, researching, influencing, negotiating and other core/ “soft” skills can matter as much or more to the success of an effort, do not forget about including these.
• What, specifically, did you do, versus other people involved in the effort? Again, since this is about you, you need to be able to articulate your individual contributions. If project success was due to effective communication or negotiation, you may want to write a mini “transcript” of what you said, how others responded, what you did next, etc. That’s too much detail to include in a resume but makes for a great reminder when prepping for an experiential interview.
• What was the result? More on that in the next section.

Good journalists are able to convey the major points of their story in a “lede,” typically one or two sentences. When you get ready to use this “article” for interviews or a resume, consolidating all of this information into a brief synopsis is hard. But it’s essential– you want the reader or listener to get the gist in a minute or less, before you dive deeper into the details. Practice in your lede as you complete each Entry.

Hierarchy of Results

Whether your Journal Entry method is Newspaper Article-style, as above, or Logic Model-style, coming next, you need to think about explaining your results in the way that matters most to your audience.

With any audience, there will be a Hierarchy of Results – a ranked order of which results will be most persuasive to your audience. You need to capture those.

Let’s start first with the Hierarchy of Results for External audiences.

• Objective reality results are the most important, especially at the organizational level, especially when there’s a comparison. Coding is a craft– there are benefits innate to creating code completely apart from how the code is used. But external audiences will care what happens as a result of your coding: does the number of bugs on a project decrease? Does the number of GitHub stars increase? Those measures are more objective than whether you personally thought the code was well written. What about “at the organizational level” ? This is what happens as a result of your code. Do sales increase, does user retention increase, does customer satisfaction increase? These are all examples of the “next level of feedback.” Being able to put your work in the context of how the organization is better off is a sign that you understand the context of your work and can continue to make decisions that help advance the team’s goals– music to external audiences’ ears. What about “especially when there’s a comparison” ? The easier you can make it for the audience to put your results in context, the better. Let’s use Grade Point Average as an example. If you get a 4.0 (a perfect GPA at many US universities) in your major, and everyone else in your major gets a 4.0, that tells the audience that you did about as well as everyone else. If you get a 3.0, and everyone else in your major gets a 2.8, that shows a positive contrast with other students. Almost always, the second situation is more impressive for you. 
• Next in the hierarchy comes subjective opinions of people who have particular weight or influence . This would include bosses, a strong senior engineer who reviewed your code customers, or major stakeholders to the particular accomplishment. Maybe it’s the VP of Product who thought that the delivery of the feature was particularly useful. Try to recall the feedback as specifically as possible–like a transcript.
• Next are subjective opinions of people who have less weight or influence but who were able to observe you closely . It’s situation-specific who’s in this category vs the previous one; but in your gut you probably know.  Pro tip : if you are using your accomplishment journal to prepare for a job interview to become a manager, “people who have particular weight or influence” are your colleagues, direct reports, or others you are mentoring. That’s because how you are perceived by them is a leading indicator of how your next team might view you.
• The least important category for external audiences is your own subjective opinion . Growth-oriented organizations know this matters too, and so they might ask you: what did you learn? How do you think it turned out? Being able to say “I thought I did this well or we did well, but we could do it better next time” is music to interviewers’ ears. But you should do everything you can to put your success in the context of 1, 2, or 3– otherwise the interviewer will have to rely on their subjective assessment of your subjective assessment of your performance, and that is pretty risky for you. 

So that was the Hierarchy of Results for External audiences . What about the Hierarchy of Results for the Internal use case , your own growth and development?

Drumroll… it’s the same hierarchy but reversed. From most to least important:

• Your own subjective opinion of how you did
• Subjective opinions of people who have less weight or influence but who were able to observe you closely
• Subjective opinions of people who have particular weight or influence
• Objective reality results

You’ve likely been on projects that were personally satisfying and didn't achieve real-world results. And you’ve probably been on projects that have had great success, but were very unpleasant. 

When it comes to planning your career, your experience– and the experience of people who have spent the most time with you and can observe what you did– provide the most helpful direction. 

Journal Entry Type 2: Logic Model

The other approach for Journal Entries is a Logic Model . 

Logic Models break down situations into four parts.

• What people, tools, and materials were available?

Activities:

• What work was carried out with these people, tools, and materials?
• Who did what?
• What lower importance results came from these activities?
• What higher importance results came from these activities?

There are a couple of benefits from the Logic Model:

• It’s super clear, for you and any external audiences
• It speaks to the hearts of systems thinkers
• It forces clarity about what really matters by distinguishing outputs and outcomes . Let’s explore that a bit further next.

What’s the difference between lower importance and higher importance results?

Go back to the Hierarchy of Results.

If you have an external audience,

• Outcomes should be the most important objective reality results. 
• Outputs can include other, less important objective reality results.
• Outputs can also include subjective opinions of people who have particular weight or influence.

Determining outcomes vs. outputs is an art and science, you’ll get better with time. But a rule of thumb is there should never be more than three Outcomes, and one highly meaningful outcome can be enough. “My app was the #1 app on the Apple store” would be perfectly good as a single outcome– think of how much information the audience can deduce from that single data point.

Here’s a quick example from football to illustrate Logic Models– with help from the Blackburn Rovers and Right Back Ryan Nyambe :

• 30 members of First team
• Club support staff
• Ewood Park Stadium
• Gym workouts
• Physical therapy
• Diet and other lifestyle choices, healthy and otherwise ;0
• Film review
• 38 English Premier League Matches for the season
• 90 minutes of play, plus injury time
• 57 goals in 2021-22, 1.3 per game
• Some fans called their win over Preston “the best performance of the season”

Ryan Nyambe:

• 31 appearances
• 70% starting Eleven
• Average of 23 passes per match
• Pass completion rate of 75%
• Currently in 7th place in EFL Championship (2d tier)
• Infogol rating of 5.91 ‍

A few things to note about this:

• Inputs and activities can be very long lists. For purposes of an Accomplishment Journal, you don’t need to list them all… but do think about some of the non-obvious inputs and activities that made the accomplishment more difficult or more successful.
• Notice how short the Outcomes list is. Be sure to be rigorous about only picking a few items, at most three. All of the other results that matter less should go in outputs.
• These two outcomes– one for a person, one for the team– have the benefit of being objective and comparative.
• Rooting for you, the Rovers, and Namibia, Ryan!

Best practices for updating your Accomplishment Journal regularly

Hopefully by now you are persuaded of the value of creating an Accomplishment Journal and of updating it regularly– remember, reading is easier than remembering.

Here are tips to make your Accomplishment Journal a habit .

• Add Accomplishment Journal creation time to your calendar and block it off
• Set up your Accomplishment Journal in a way that is maximally easy for you: pick whatever medium you like best, pick a standard format, and just do it. Any possible format, carried out regularly, is better than a format that you use less often. See below for a few templates that could get you started.
• Add it to a habit tracker.
• Reward yourself for filling it out.
• Find a buddy and set a regular meeting to review it together.

Now let’s talk about how frequently you should be filling out the Accomplishment Journal.

It would not be inappropriate to spend 15 minutes every week filling it out. That has the benefit of codifying things while they are fresh.

But at minimum, you should be adding to the Accomplishment Journal at least 1/12 of each project or accomplishment.

Why 1/12?  Working backwards: you are likely going to have 1 or 2 Journal Entries each time you sit down to write. If you write 12 times you’ll have 18 Entries when you are finished with the project. 18 Entries will give you more than enough “source material” to whittle it down to 2-6 bullet points, which is what you’d need for a resume entry or story for an interview. 

So if you are in a 3-month boot camp, or in a University class, you should be adding to the Accomplishment Journal every week. If you are aiming for a promotion at work in a year, writing monthly is enough.

Your future self will be extremely pleased with your current self for creating that many entries to work with. 

Templates for creating your own Accomplishment Journal

Click here to download Accomplishment Journals templates you can use on your own.

There are Google Sheets and Docs versions of the Newspaper Article and the Logic Model.

Each template includes:

• Instructions
• A commitment guide to help you set a promise to yourself on how often you'll fill it out
• Template for Journal Entries

Conclusion … why did we just write a piece about Accomplishment Journals, anyway?

The team at Sema is passionate about folks in tech building their skills, advancing their careers, and chasing their dreams. And we believe that telling stories about your experiences– with all of the context, specificity, and insight necessary to talk about code properly– is a great way to make that happen.

We’re working on a free tool to help Engineers build their Accomplishment Journals based on code reviews– we call it a Developer Portfolio . You can read more about it here . It works with GitHub for now. If you’d like to try it out, sign up for the waitlist on our website or drop us a line at code reviews at Sema - [email protected]

Please tag us on Twitter if you start experimenting with Accomplishment Journals– we’d love to celebrate your growth and experimentation. https://twitter.com/semasoftware1  

We wish you great success and fulfillment ahead.

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How to Write an Amazing Brag Book

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to speak at one of Bossed Up’s webinars addressing how to Write Your Next Level Resume . The video is still live and you can view it here. 

What I learned in presenting this webinar is there are plenty of smart, dedicated, hard-working professionals out there who have never heard of the concept of a Brag Book. Well, welcome to this blog post, where we will walk through what a Brag Book is, what you should include in it, and how to maintain it easily. 

Brag Book? Huh!?

It’s a book, a document, a list, etc. where you store all your accomplishments and awesome work throughout the year. Sounds simple enough, right? It is quite simple, yet plenty of people don’t do it and come annual review time, they are staring at a blank self-evaluation document watching the cursor taunt them as they try to remember what it was they have done the past year. 

Results matter. Knowing the projects you are working on, their impact, and your value to your company or your employer is important. It helps inform decisions on raises, bonuses, and helps you determine your own worth. It also helps you should you find you aren’t being valued the way you assess you should be, take the leap toward writing a killer resume that gets you a job faster. It’s hard to debate numbers, and it’s even harder to debate good talent on their worth when they are sitting across from you asking for a raise and they have the data to back up their value to your company.

What Should Be In My Brag Book? The key components of a worthy Brag Book are:

• Significant Responsibilities
• Financial Goals and Results
• Qualitative Achievements

Track Financial Goals

This is where you track the money. Follow it wherever it goes. Whether you helped earn it through sales goals or marketing goals, helped save it through better processes, better tools, or projects you’ve worked on, or helped better track where it’s going and how its being spent.

Track Tasks & Projects

This is where you track the projects you’ve worked on; whether big or small, these can help you identify both quantitative and qualitative goals to add to your resume. Remember to identify the goal of the project, what was accomplished, and what was learned from it, in addition to positives wins for the projects, such as costs, savings, and time.  

Track Leadership

Being involved in a project is great, but what about leading a project? Be sure to identify those opportunities where you were able to lead a team, project, committee, or served in an outside organization in a leadership capacity related to your field or industry.  

Track Awards

This might sound obvious, but people often forget that awards are the result of some sort of hard work or imitative that goes above and beyond the normal duties of an employee at your company. Track those and the reason you received them – not just that you did in fact receive one.

Track Qualitative Achievements

Not everything can be measured. This is where tracking your qualitative achievements is important. Track when the projects or initiatives you participated in helped to move the needle forward on some larger overarching goal of the company, such as improving morale, resolving complaints faster, reducing staff turnover, and helping to create a department that didn’t exist before.

Track New Skills 

Did you get a certification or learn a new language? Add this accomplishment to your brag book. Even if it doesn’t fit perfectly into desired skill set, learning new skills are Brag worthy accomplishments that should be celebrated and documented. Plus, should you ever try to leverage your skills into a new field, career path, or your own business, you will have these well-documented in your Brag Book!  

How to Track?

The first component of any good Brag Book is a metric. The key metrics of any company are can be broken down into three core components: time, money, or resources. When you write down your projects, goals, tasks, skills, etc. be sure to attach a metric to them. Is there a time associated with this project, which you exceeded or met? Or a cost savings associated with the acquisition of your new skill? Or perhaps a resource that can be better allocated as a result of your qualitative achievement? At the end of the day, I always recommend tracking all three components: time, money, and resources because they each can reveal their own successes with time. Some projects have the result of short-term improved resource allocation and the long-term result of major savings. You won’t know this without tracking both components. 

When to Track ?

At the beginning of any new project, duh. Well, I would imagine most professionals have some way of tracking their projects. But are they all tracking these other components? Probably not. And this is where you can set yourself apart. Make tracking part of your Monthly Recap . It’s easier to keep track of all this when you have a clear system in place for organizing your goals.  

Where do I track these things?

Your Brag Book is for you. It’s to make your life easier, so I recommend using a tool or method that you already feel comfortable with when tracking your brag-worthy achievements. I have seen people use Word, Excel, OneNote, Evernote, Todoist, Outlook, Google Calendars, or good old-fashioned pen and paper. I am a pen and paper girl myself. I love technology, but there is something super satisfying about writing my achievements down on paper. Sometimes I think…maybe I should frame this? On second thought, maybe not. 

 What’s my go-to place to track to my accomplishments? Click-Up. Never heard of it? Here’s a screenshot of a sample version of my Brag Book below. Click-Up is a FREE tool that let’s you organize data and information in a sortable and colorful way. Want to try it out for free?  

  Should I include physical versions of my resume, transcripts, etc. ?

I have read that some people take brag books quite literally. They put together full-on scrapbooks of themselves that include photos and transcripts from high school, college, etc. Although that looks really nice, I find the most useful information the most practical information. I use my Brag Book as a one-page tool to help me understand my value to my organization. And as much as I would like to think my organization cares about my high school graduation photos, they don’t. What they care about is that I can help make their organization one that either: saves time, saves or makes more money, or expends less effort on acquiring resources (human resources, products, equipment & services, etc.) on achieving goals, initiatives, and growth. This is what my Brag Book centers around and I know it’s why my Brag Book has been my go-to resource for every annual review and resume re-write. 

With that being said, I keep a separate folder on my Dropbox with letters of recommendations I have scanned in from prior firms and companies. This is a good practice to get into and I highly recommend saving these for later. But they don’t need to be printed out and can be easily captured in your Brag Book.

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How To Create A Brag Sheet That Will Get You Recommendations

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Professional recommendations can help you land your dream job or get you into college. But truly great recommendations, the kind capable of making a significant difference, aren’t so easy to get.

Because, typically, what gets put in the letter is out of your control. It’s up to your old boss, professor, or that not-so-close connection you made searching through fellow LinkedIn alumni.

And who knows what they think is important to write about you? The letter might be so generic that your recommendation seems unreliable . Or it could be a recommendation that shares valuable information not listed anywhere else in your job application.

So, how can you prevent someone from giving you a less than stellar reference ? By including a brag sheet with your recommendation request!

If you’re not sure what a brag sheet is or how to make one, don’t worry! Because in this post, I’ll be going over:

• What a brag sheet is (and how it can help you get an amazing recommendation)
• Other ways you can use a brag sheet (e.g. to get a promotion)
• How to create a brag sheet (template included)
• 2 examples of brag sheets you can use for inspiration

Let’s jump right in!

What Is A Brag Sheet?

A brag sheet is list of your skills, education, and achievements made throughout high school. It may sound a bit like a resume, but they are actually quite different. While your resume typically only showcases your work experience, education, and skills relevant to a particular job, a brag sheet is a lot less formal. Its main purpose is to showcase who you are and what you've accomplished when asking someone for a letter of recommendation.

A brag sheet is not meant to replace or serve as a resume. But what it can do is provide a more nuanced perspective about who you are as a student and a professional. You do this by including things like test scores, academic awards, work experience, extracurricular activities, any clubs you were a part of, leadership roles you held, travels, and volunteer experience.

You can include data-driven results from your work, testimonials from your superiors, or even details about activities outside of your education that have helped build your professional skills.

What Can A Brag Sheet Be Used For?

A brag sheet can be used to get a letter of recommendation from someone. It helps the person writing the recommendation have a better idea of what they can highlight and makes it easier for them to reference your achievements.

But even if you don’t need a recommendation now, I would still encourage you to create one. Why? Because you never know when you'll need a letter of recommendation for a job or college application. And having a running brag sheet keeps you prepared for when you do. You can use the same sheet to do other important things throughout your career like:

• Negotiate your salary before accepting a new job offer
• Make a convincing argument to your boss on why you deserve a promotion or raise
• Track important achievements and performance metrics that you may want to add to future versions of your resume
• Motivate yourself to keep going if you’re ever unemployed and feel like you can’t find a job

How does a brag sheet help in each of those scenarios? Because it crushes doubt. Doubt over whether someone can write you a good recommendation. Doubt over whether you deserve a promotion or bump in pay. And self-doubt over whether you’re as good at your profession as you think you are.

A brag sheet will serve as a reminder — to you or whoever looks at it — that you’re capable of big things. But, for it to work the way that it should, you have to know how to make a brag sheet that helps others understand what you've accomplished.

How To Create A Brag Sheet

Creating a brag sheet is simple. All you need to get started is a blank document. Of course, if you’re inclined to get more creative and use other tools, you can.

But if you want to start quick, open up a blank document and create your own brag sheet template with these 4 sections:

• Data-Driven Results
• Comments from Peers
• Comments from Superiors
• Professional Extracurricular Activities

The next step is filling it in with all of the relevant information for your career. Not sure how to start? Take a look at the examples below for some inspiration!

Brag Sheet Examples

Use these examples when you start to create your own. These brag sheet templates include two examples for each of the four main sections.

Example for College Students

If you’re in your final year of college, use this senior brag sheet example to get recommendations to help you land an internship in college or stand out when it’s time to find employment .

Data-Driven Results Collected and analyzed data from 300 students on what they’d like to see from the student government; increased student attendance at weekly townhalls by 17% Organized an event of 100 people to help raise $8,000 for cancer research Comments from Peers “You have the most detailed and thorough notes I’ve ever seen!” “I don’t know anyone better at public speaking than you.” Comments from Superiors “You’re the best intern we’ve ever had.” “Thank you for keeping me updated on your progress throughout the project. It really turned out to be one of the best in the class!” “Professional” Extracurricular Activities Part-time math and reading tutor at an education center for at-risk youth

Example for Working Professionals

Use a professional brag sheet example like this one when going for a promotion , asking for a raise, or updating your resume when changing careers.

Data-Driven Results Completed research and led a team of 6 to boost company sales by 25% during Q1 of 2020 Involved in employee branding videos that have generated 50,000 views on LinkedIn Co-lead a team to arrange an employee wellness event for 80% of company employees, including virtual workout sessions and mental health talks Comments from Peers “Great job with that last client! I spoke with them the other day and they couldn’t stop raving about how much they loved working with you.” “You’re always so calm and level-headed! I really appreciate that. When things get hectic, I can look at you and feel like it’s going to be okay.” Comments from Superiors “You make my job as your manager so easy!” “You’re not the most talkative person in the room. But I know that I can trust your way of approaching problems. Keep up the good work.” Professional Extracurricular Activities Leader of local Toastmasters group dedicated to helping introverts overcome their fear of public speaking

Key Takeaways

Getting remarkable recommendations can take some luck. You don’t always know what the other person will write about you. But with a brag sheet, you can help guide the other person to emphasize your best achievements and skills.

Use the template and examples I shared here to create a brag sheet you can use the next time you're asking for a letter of recommendation, admission to college, salary raise, or job promotion. And keep it updated often so you can use it to help quickly write a resume for your next job!

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Austin Belcak

Austin is the founder of Cultivated Culture where he helps people land jobs without connections, without traditional experience, and without applying online. His strategies have been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, & Fast Company and has helped people just like you land jobs at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, & more.

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• Notes from company personnel congratulating you on your most recent sales award.
• If you have a wall plaque that documents your sales achievements,make a copy of the front of it and include it.
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The Sales Brag Book for Medical and Pharmaceutical Sales Positions

Chris Carlson

Updated October 29, 2021

Published November 18, 2019

When interviewing for medical and/or pharmaceutical sales positions it’s imperative that you document your sales numbers through a sales brag book.

The brag book should be sectioned so that you can easily find information during an interview. The sections to include are listed below.

Your brag book should look professional, polished and add to your presentation when sharing information about your sales history.

In addition, you should have leave behind copies for each person you will be interviewing with.

When the day of interviews is over, Sales Managers often use brag books as a way to break a tie when several candidates interviewed well.

Brag books specifically designed for pharmaceutical sales and medical sales are detailed and should paint a complete picture of your work and academic history.

Put together and used correctly, a sales brag book can greatly increase your odds of winning a sales job. It can also add additional leverage to negotiate a strong base salary.

Medical / Pharmaceutical Sales Brag Book Sections

• Resume – see an Example Here .
• This section should include any research you have done on the company and industry. Highlight the key points that interest you about the company and their products. You can reference this info during the interview.
• This section includes product info and brochures from your current company. This is a tool that you will use if you are asked to do a role play of a sales call.
• Sales quota certificates
• Photos of plaques and trophies
• Any inter-company memos stating contest and sales results
• Letters from customers
• President’s Club or Achiever’s Club documentation
• Any documentation showing increased revenue in your territory
• Ranking sheets
• College diploma
• Transcripts (if you had a 3.0 or greater)
• Standout athletic accomplishments
• Standout leadership roles (think President of your class)
• Sales Trainings completed Employee reviews
• Letters of recommendation

A well-prepared Brag Book will allow you to showcase your accomplishments and help separate you from your competition.

If interviewing for positions with a company car do include DMV records at the back of the book. If you aren’t interviewing for a medical or pharmaceutical sales job you can find an abridged version of a Sales Brag Book here .

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How (and why) to use a brag book during a sales interview, sales situational interview questions, smart questions to ask at the end of a sales interview, join the newsletter.

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My name is Chris Carlson and I’m the founder and President of Sales Talent. This blog grew out of my desire to document and share what I’ve learned in my two plus decades of  sales recruiting  and leading Sales Talent. Our posts are aimed at sales professionals and leaders that speaks to talent selection, team building, or career advancement. If you have a topic that you’d like my take on, please reach out to me. You can find Chris Carlson on LinkedIn or contact him directly at: [email protected] .

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What to Include in your Sales Brag Book

THE BRAG BOOK

Now the brag book does not have to be a perfectly bound book, but something like a 3 ring binder and a hole puncher will do the job just fine.  A few impressive candidates actually had it spiral bounded at the local office supply store and it shows that they go above and beyond what others would do and take their career seriously.

WHAT TO INCLUDE

For this book, I truly don’t judge the book by its cover, but look at what the candidate has to showcase and reveal that impresses me the most.  This is your chance to brag about yourself and give proof that you are worth hiring and if hired, you can accomplish great things.  Now this list is not a full list but is a good start:

• Official Ranking
• Excellent Performance Reviews
• Letter, emails demonstrating how you go above and beyond and take initiative.
• Customer testimonials
• Honors or high G.P.A. (if recent)
• Volunteer letter
• Certificates/ Personal development classes taken
• Letters of Recommendations
• Photos (receiving award, on award trip, etc.-  keep it professional and relevant)

To learn more, we have created a quick guide to help you understand, create and use a sales brag book.  Click here to learn more: Brag Book Guide

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