Your CV Lists Responsibilities. It Needs to Show Your Impact.

I looked at a CV recently from somebody I know is brilliant at what she does.

I’ve worked with her.

I’ve seen the quality of her work first-hand.

I’ve also heard other people rave about her.

If somebody asked me whether they should hire her, I’d have absolutely no hesitation recommending her.

Then she sent me her CV.

And if I hadn’t known her, I’d never have guessed she was that good.

The CV wasn’t bad.

It was just a list of things she’d done.

That’s the problem with loads of CVs.

Your responsibilities tell me about the job

Let’s imagine you’re a Marketing Manager.

Your CV says you:

Managed marketing campaigns.

Worked with agencies.

Managed the marketing budget.

Produced content.

Reported on campaign performance.

Worked with sales.

Fine.

I now know roughly what your job involved.

But if I’m recruiting another Marketing Manager, I’d expect most applicants to have done some version of those things.

You’ve established that you’ve had the job.

You haven’t given me much reason to choose you.

I need to know what happened because you did those things

What campaigns?

How big?

What happened?

Did leads increase?

Did you launch into a new market?

Did you reduce agency spend?

Did you build the function from scratch?

Did you completely change the company’s approach?

Did sales suddenly start getting better-quality leads?

Did you manage the biggest launch in the company’s history?

Now we’re learning about you rather than the generic responsibilities of a Marketing Manager.

This applies to almost every job

A recruiter “managed the recruitment process”.

A Project Manager “managed projects”.

A Sales Manager “managed a sales team”.

A Finance Manager “produced management accounts”.

A Teacher “planned and delivered lessons”.

A Customer Service Manager “ensured excellent customer service”.

None of those statements is wrong.

They’re just not particularly interesting on their own.

It’s the difference between telling me what somebody with that job does and telling me what you did with the opportunity.

Don’t remove all your responsibilities

This is where internet advice tends to become binary.

“NEVER put responsibilities on your CV.”

That’s nonsense.

I need responsibilities.

They give me context.

If you tell me you increased sales by 20%, I want to understand whether you were personally selling, managing a sales team or running the entire commercial function.

If you tell me you transformed an operation, I want to know whether that operation had ten employees or 10,000.

The responsibility establishes the environment.

The achievement shows your impact within it.

You need both.

Impact isn’t always money

People in revenue-generating roles often have an easier time with this.

Sold £4 million.

Exceeded target by 130%.

Won 15 new clients.

Lovely.

But what if you’re in HR, operations, administration, teaching, project management or another role where your contribution doesn’t always appear neatly on a sales dashboard?

Think more broadly.

Did something become faster?

Simpler?

Cheaper?

More reliable?

Did you solve a recurring problem?

Build something?

Introduce something?

Improve quality?

Reduce complaints?

Increase retention?

Develop people?

Take on more responsibility?

Get promoted?

Deliver something difficult?

Impact exists in almost every job.

It just isn’t always expressed in pounds.

Ask yourself what your boss would say

Here’s another way to find it.

Imagine I called your manager and asked:

“What makes them good?”

What would they say?

Hopefully not:

“They attend meetings and complete monthly reports.”

They’d probably talk about the things they rely on you for.

Maybe you always sort out the difficult client.

Maybe you’re brilliant at bringing structure to chaos.

Maybe you’ve developed half the team.

Maybe you’re the person they trust with the biggest projects.

Maybe you’ve massively improved something since joining.

That’s the stuff your CV often misses because it doesn’t appear in your official job description.

Your CV shouldn’t require somebody to already know you’re good

That’s what happened with the CV I mentioned at the beginning.

I could see past the document because I knew the person.

A recruiter couldn’t.

They would have seen a competent-looking candidate with relevant responsibilities.

They wouldn’t have seen the person I’d actually worked with.

That’s why this matters.

Your CV has to do the explaining when you aren’t in the room.

As I explain in What Recruiters Actually Look for When They Read Your CV, I’m trying to work out not only whether you’ve done the work, but whether there’s enough evidence for me to want to speak to you.

Responsibilities help answer the first question.

Impact helps answer the second.

Go through your current CV and look at every recent job.

If I removed the company name and gave those responsibilities to somebody else with the same job title, would their CV look almost identical?

If it would, you’ve probably got some work to do.

And if you want to know whether your current CV is showing enough evidence of your value, run it through my Free CV Score.

Score your CV free and see what your CV actually says about you.

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