The experience section is where most CVs are won or lost. The difference between an average CV and a strong one is usually not the jobs — it is how the bullets are written.
Duties versus achievements
A duty describes what your job was. An achievement describes what happened because you did it well.
| Duty | Achievement |
|---|---|
| Responsible for customer support emails | Resolved 70+ customer emails a day with a 95% satisfaction score |
| Managed social media accounts | Grew Instagram engagement from 1.8% to 4.5% with a new content calendar |
| Prepared monthly reports | Automated monthly reporting, saving the finance team 25 hours a month |
Recruiters already know roughly what a job involves. They want to know how well you did it.
A simple formula
Action verb + what you did + result (with a number if possible)
- Redesigned the onboarding flow based on 15 usability tests, increasing completion by 26%.
- Negotiated freight rates with six carriers, reducing transport costs by 14%.
You can also flip it and start with the result: “Cut unplanned downtime by 40% by introducing a preventive maintenance programme.”
Finding your numbers
Most people have more numbers than they think. Ask yourself:
- Volume: How many customers, tickets, patients, students, orders or projects?
- Money: What budget did you manage? What revenue did you influence or costs did you save?
- Time: What did you make faster? How much time did a change save?
- Quality: Error rates, satisfaction scores, audit results, ratings.
- Scale: Team size, number of locations, users of a system you built.
- Ranking: Top performer, first of 18, award winner.
If you do not know an exact figure, a careful estimate is fine (“about 30 a day”), but never invent numbers. You may need to explain them in an interview.
Strong verbs that show impact
Start each bullet with a verb that shows what you contributed: led, built, launched, improved, reduced, increased, negotiated, automated, trained, resolved. Avoid weak openings such as “Responsible for”, “Helped with” or “Worked on”, which describe presence rather than impact.
How many bullets?
- Current or most recent role: 4–6 bullets.
- Earlier roles: 2–4 bullets.
- Roles older than 10–15 years: one line or none.
Put the most relevant and impressive bullet first in each role.
Before and after
Before: “Responsible for training new staff and helping with scheduling.”
After: “Trained 8 new team members on systems and service standards; introduced a shift-planning template that reduced last-minute schedule changes.”
The CVLuma builder includes achievement formulas, action verbs and example bullets for dozens of careers. Use them as a starting point, then replace every bracketed figure with your own real results.