Applying, step by step · 6 min read
How do I turn CV duties into achievements?
Start each line with what you did, add how much or how many, and end with what changed. If there's no number, name the result someone could check.
The short answer
Rewrite each duty as a line with three parts: what you did, the scale you did it at, and what changed because of it. 'Responsible for the rota' becomes 'Built the weekly rota for 24 staff, cutting last-minute gaps from about five a week to one'. If you don't have a number, name a concrete result: a process others now use, a complaint that stopped, a deadline you rescued. Keep every claim to something you could explain in an interview.
On this page 4 sections
The formula
Verb, then scale, then result. It works for any job because every job has something you did, something it was done to and something that happened next.
| Duty | Achievement |
|---|---|
| Responsible for customer emails | Answered around 60 customer emails a day and wrote the 12 saved replies the team still uses |
| Managed social media | Ran the company's Instagram for two years, growing it from 2,000 to 11,000 followers |
| Handled stock | Counted and reordered stock for a store of 4,000 lines; cut out-of-stocks on the top 50 items |
| Taught Year 9 science | Taught science to four Year 9 classes and rewrote the electricity unit the department now uses |
Where to find the numbers
- Old performance reviews, targets and appraisal notes.
- Emails where someone thanked you or reported a result.
- Reports, dashboards or rotas you made.
- Ask a former colleague: 'What changed after I did X?'
Keep it true
An achievement line is a promise you'll be asked about. Interviewers often pick one line and go deep: how, why, what went wrong. If you'd stumble on the follow-up, soften the claim until you wouldn't.
OffLadder CV is our free Chrome extension for this step. Open a job post and it lists the post's must-haves, shows which ones your CV already mentions, and rewrites your CV for that job. Every change is checked against the CV you gave it, so it never adds experience you don't have.
Questions people ask
- What if my job didn't have measurable results?
- Most jobs have more numbers than people think: how many customers, how often, how big a budget, how fast. If there truly aren't any, describe the result in words someone could check, like 'became the person new starters were sent to'.
- Can I estimate numbers?
- Yes, if you can explain how you got there. Say 'about' or 'around' and be ready to describe the estimate. Never invent a number you couldn't defend.
- How many bullet points per job?
- Three to six for recent, relevant roles, fewer for older ones. Put the lines that prove the post's must-haves first.
- Should every line start with a verb?
- It reads better. 'Built', 'cut', 'ran', 'trained', 'fixed' and 'launched' tell the reader what you did. 'Responsible for' only tells them what you were meant to do.
- What about team results?
- Say what your part was. 'Wrote the onboarding emails for a launch that signed 3,000 users' is honest and still strong.
Exercises are practice, not evidence of career fit or a qualification. How to read our guides and report a correction.
How this page is written
Sources support the factual background, not a guarantee that an exercise predicts career fit. Fictional practice material is labelled. Dates record content updates; no independent expert review is implied. More about OffLadder.