How to Use a Brag Book to Advance Your Career

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For some, bragging about yourself doesn’t come naturally. But when it comes to work, bragging is sometimes necessary—especially when you’re sitting in a | SUCCESS

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A smug woman pointing to herself while wearing a crown.

For some, bragging about yourself doesn’t come naturally. But when it comes to work, bragging is sometimes necessary—especially when you’re sitting in a job interview or being considered for a promotion.

If you’re not actively writing down your wins and past accomplishments, it can be hard to know what to say when asked, “Why should we hire you?” or “Why should you get that promotion/raise?”

That’s where a brag book comes in. A brag book is a powerful tool that allows you to capture and remind yourself of your achievements, ensuring that when the time comes, you have everything right there in front of you.

“Brag books are really good visual reminders of everything that we’ve accomplished, all in one place,” says Erin McGoff, career expert and founder of Advice With Erin.

Although brag books are for your eyes only, they’re great to look at when you’re preparing for a job interview or promotion and you’re asked experience-based questions, like:

“Tell me about a time you achieved ____.”
“What is your experience with ____?”

Having a brag book handy means you’re ready with specific examples to confidently answer these questions and highlight your accomplishments.

Not sure where to start? Here are some things to include in your brag book:

“Sometimes, you may work for a boss who isn’t very validating. So, it’s important to take those moments when they do compliment you and tell you that you did a good job, and keep those tucked away,” McGoff says. The same thing is true with compliments from co-workers.

If the compliment you receive is in writing (email or Slack, for instance), you can take a screenshot and place it in a folder on your computer. If it’s said verbally, you can write it down in your notes.

If you work in an industry where you have clients or customers, jotting down their positive feedback should be included in your brag book too.

“For example, if you work in a restaurant, you might want to go to Yelp and see what people are saying,” McGoff suggests.

If they were to write, ‘Wow, the hostess was so great,’ take a screenshot of it.

If it’s a more client-based job, you can always take a screenshot of the emails or anything else that customers send you.

Milestones make for another great page in your brag book. Sometimes when we finish a project at work, we feel tired and just think, “OK, on to the next.” But before you do, it’s important to take a moment, look at what you’ve accomplished and write those achievements down.

You can do so immediately afterward or pick a specific time, such as weekly or monthly, to note your wins, McGoff suggests. It’s best not to wait too long (for instance, at the half-year mark), as you may forget some of the details.

“If you go to that meeting and you’re like, ‘I think I just deserve [a promotion]. I’ve been working hard’—that’s one approach. But a better approach would be, ‘Look at X, Y, and Z—all of these ways that I brought value,’” McGoff says.

Maybe it’s how many sales you closed, the amount of money you brought in or your customer fulfillment numbers. After pointing to specific examples, your boss might think, “OK, this person came prepared, and they really do bring value to this company.”

If you have a job role where numbers are hard to measure, McGoff says there are still ways to include data in your brag book or resume.

“The thing that people don’t realize is that all companies have ways of keeping track of statistics and numbers and data,” she says. “So it might require a little bit of digging here and there. You can ask your manager about some of the data that happened, and maybe they aren’t things that you alone were responsible for, but they’re things that you contributed to, and these are great to keep track of, especially for those pesky resume bullets.”

When creating your brag book, it’s important to remember that it’s not something people usually see. Instead, it’s something you turn to and pull from when needed.

“It can be something that you revisit when you’re working on that resume, cover letter, or portfolio or preparing for a promotion meeting. This is a place where you can see all of your accomplishments in one place,” says McGoff.

When putting it together, create it in a way that works best for you. “You can use Notion, Canva [or] anything you want to make it nice and fun and just somewhere that you can revisit and feel good about yourself,” she says. You can even add in motivational quotes if you wish. If you don’t feel like creating a fancy document, just pasting your notes in Google Drive can work too.

“Humans tend to focus on the negative. We tend to focus on where we’re not enough, and the brag book is entirely dedicated to reminding you of what you did accomplish and how much you do bring to the office, which is good both internally [and] externally,” McGoff says.

Photo from Nicoleta Ionescu/Shutterstock.com

Alyshia Hull is a freelance writer born, raised and currently living in Upstate New York. She attended SUNY Oswego and has been writing in the business space ever since.

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