My client A and I were transforming her CV from responsibilities to results.

I get asked to review a lot of CVs, and almost all of them are merely a list of responsibilities. The main problem with this is that anyone – even someone who has not done the job, much less done it well – can create this kind of CV.

For example, this is the “What you’ll be doing” section of a random job ad for a Senior PM:

I could rewrite them into the past tense and easily add in my CV:

• Delivered incredible products and experiences by combining a deep understanding of business strategy with creative product strategy and technical acumen
• Owned the product roadmap, opportunity space, priorities and execution, focused on X product vertical
• Leveraged data and customer feedback to constantly iterate and evolve product offerings

This took me 30 seconds to write. I didn’t have to do the work. And this is what most people’s CVs look like. It’s crazy!

Workshop-ing A’s CV

Here’s what A initially wrote:

Support the development of written and designed resources related to business development and network building

All this tells me is she had this task, but not how well she did it. She could have done a horrible job for all this reveals to me.

• Me: Did you do a good job? 
• A: I don’t know. We haven’t raised any funds yet. We’re still working on it and aim to finish in June.
• Me: It’s ok. We don’t need to wait that long to find out if you did a good job. Can you tell me what you did here?
• A: I made a list of possible donors, with all the deadlines, requirements, limitations, all in one big document.
• Me: What’s the goal of this list? 
• A: To guide us on how to prioritize.
• Me: And, did it help you prioritize?
• A: Yes! We now know all the possible donors, their timelines, and what to work on at any given time.
• Me: Then the list has done its job. That’s how you know you did a good job. Because you have this list, you now (1) Have X months of prioritized donor funding applications, (2) Saved X hours from having to scramble to figure out which donor funding to apply for every time you feel the need to apply for something or whatever. 

Here’s the transformed bullet point:

Created a list of all possible donors, with all deadlines, requirements, etc. which resulted in six months of prioritized donor funding applications, saving us X hours from having to figure out which donor funding to apply for

First, it is obvious that A has actually done the work. Second, it is way more compelling to read that not only did A do her job, it actually yielded results for her company. Ultimately, this is what hiring managers are looking for.

Another one:

Supported the extension and expansion of an education project funded by a donor through proposal development and reporting.

Again, all it tells me is that A had this job, just like almost everyone else applying to the jobs she’s applying for.

• Me: Did you do a good job? 
• A: Yes, the project was approved.
• Me: It’s great that it was approved. But there’s a lot of things outside of your control with the approval. After you worked on the proposal, how do you know you did a good job? 
• A: My boss accepted 100% of my inputs. He had comments, but no major revision. But it’s lame to say it was good just because there were no major revisions… 
• Me: Was your boss happy?
• A: Yes, he said good job. And this was my first proposal development. 
• Me: That’s it. This was your first proposal development, you did it on your own, and your boss was happy with it and did not have to spend time doing any major revisions. That’s a huge accomplishment. You should write it in your CV.

How to bring out the results from your responsibilities

You need only two questions: What makes you say you did a good job? Did the thing you did achieve its goal?

To elaborate:

1. Did you do a good job? What makes you say you did a good job?
   1. Did you get any feedback from your manager?
   2. Did you get any feedback from your stakeholders?
   3. Did you get any feedback from your team?
   4. If someone else did the task and did a poor job, what would it have looked like? 
2. What was the goal of [the thing you did]? Did [the thing you did] achieve this goal?

Let me know how it goes!