Updating Your CV with Recent Achievements

Stop burying your wins on your resume. It’s amazing how many resumes still tuck the good stuff in the middle or make it hard to find. Leading with impact, especially quantified results, gives hiring managers a reason to keep reading. Think about it from the employer's perspective. They’re not scanning for job duties or a laundry list of responsibilities. They’re looking for proof. Proof that you can solve problems, deliver results, and create value in ways that directly connect to their business needs. When you bury your biggest achievements halfway down the page—or worse, in a lot of text —they may never be seen. And if they are seen, the impact may be diluted. Instead, pull the results forward. Here are four simple ways to do it: 1. Lead with results, not tasks.  The strongest resumes don’t spotlight what you were “responsible for”, but what you achieved. ❌ Responsible for managing a sales team ✔️ Directed national sales team that increased revenue 22% in the first year 2. Quantify whenever possible.  Numbers and specifics stop the reader’s eye. $10M in revenue, 35% efficiency gain, 500 staff managed....when shared appropriately, these are the details that make your leadership real and tangible. 3. Front-load achievements in the file.  Place some of your most powerful results in the top half of the resume. I like to include 3 or 4 major wins in a "Career Highlights" or "Achievements" section at the top of the resume so decision-makers see proof before they even get to the work history. 4. Front-load bullet statements. Don’t bury the result in a statement. Put it first. ❌ Oversaw company expansion into new markets, increasing market share by 25% within 18 months by building partnerships with international distributors. ✔️ Increased market share 25% within 18 months and led company expansion into 3 new markets by building partnerships with international distributors. Think of your resume as a business case, not a job description. The best way to make your case is to make your wins impossible to miss!

Your CV might be costing you interviews and this is how you fix it. Recruiters spend an average of 6-8 seconds scanning a CV. If yours is filled with generic descriptions like "responsible for software development" or "involved in cloud migration", you’re blending into the crowd. The problem? Your impact is invisible. I see it all the time: “Responsible for software development.” “Worked on cloud migration.” But here’s the thing: Recruiters and hiring managers aren’t looking for responsibilities. They’re looking for results. If your CV reads like a job description, it’s not doing you any favors. It doesn’t tell us: What you actually did❓ How well you did it❓ Why it mattered❓ Next time you update your CV, use this simple framework: Start with a strong action verb. (Optimized, Automated, Led, Improved…) Describe what you worked on. (Be specific! What was the project, what problem did you solve?) Show the impact. (Numbers, percentages, efficiency gains, anything that proves your contribution.) Instead of: “Involved in cloud migration.” Try: “Led cloud migration for a SaaS product, cutting infrastructure costs by 30%.” Your CV isn’t just a list of what you did. It’s proof of what you can do. So, here’s a challenge: Open your CV right now. Find one bullet point and rewrite it using this framework. Trust me, it makes a difference. And if you need a second pair of eyes, drop me a message. I’m happy to help. 🍀

The CV habits that make Aussie job seekers look outdated and how to fix them. I’ve reviewed thousands of tech CVs across Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland. Here are the signs that instantly age a candidate, plus the fixes that get interviews moving: ❌ “References available on request.” Recruiters already know this. Use that space for impact. ✅ Replace with: a one-line achievement. Example: “Scaled fintech app from 2k → 50k users in 12 months.” ❌ Career objectives. “Seeking a challenging role…” = filler. ✅ Replace with: a sharp summary naming your industry, stack, and value add. Example: “5+ years in cloud engineering, specialising in AWS cost optimisation.” ❌ Duties copied from a job description. Looks generic. Doesn’t show what you achieved. ✅ Replace with: measurable outcomes. ❌ Copying duties from the job description. Looks generic. Doesn’t show what you achieved. ✅ Replace with: consequences + results. Here’s an example from a recent 1:1 coaching session: Before “Set strategy and led execution for stateless hosting golden paths via the Internal Developer Portal (IDP).” My feedback: This tells the reader what you did, but not what it delivered. So I asked: - How long did this take? - How many teams were involved? - Was this a multi-year strategy? AFTER “Delivered a 3-year stateless hosting strategy via the Internal Developer Portal (IDP), adopted by 14 engineering squads across APAC. Reduced deployment time by 60% and unlocked $2.5M in annual infrastructure savings.” That’s the difference between describing activity and proving impact. ✅ Replace with: clean, single-column, 4 pages max. White space matters. ❌ Listing every job since uni. No one needs your 2009 retail gig. ✅ Replace with: last 5 years of relevant roles. Highlight stack + results. The rest can go to "extended career history". There are two things matter more than design trends: 1. Write facts in plain English so anyone can grasp your value in 10 seconds. 2. Apply to jobs where those facts matter most. Tailoring is what wins interviews. A CV isn’t about telling your whole story. It’s about telling the right story, to the right audience, in the clearest way possible. If you want to see how these CV fixes have worked for real tech professionals in AU/NZ, check out the testimonials on my site: https://lnkd.in/gW7Equtj #LinkedInNewsAustralia

💎 How To Track Your Impact (+ free Notion templates). How to document your small and big wins, visualize your work and the incredible impact you've made ↓ We often assume that good work speaks for itself. If we just work hard enough, our work will get noticed and we will be elevated across our career ladder. Yet more often than not, your achievements will get lost somewhere between reorg efforts, new priorities, abandoned initiatives and urgent deadlines. Managers change all the time. You might have a strong relationship with your manager already, but never get a chance to move up the ladder because they have already moved to another team. A new manager, despite all your efforts, often won’t be able to promote you as an internal policy might block any new promotions in their first 6 or 12 months. So you’ll have to start over again. A good way to push back is to have a “brag document” — a running document that lists your small and big achievements, feedback from your managers and colleagues, screenshots of your appraisals and recommendations, along with lessons you’ve learned. It also builds confidence in your abilities and helps you better see your career trajectory. Useful things to include: 🧠 New skills you’ve learned 🏅 New certificates you’ve acquired ⏱️ Impactful projects you’ve leaunched 🧪 Experiments or A/B tests you’ve initiated 🧭 Product metrics you’ve moved 👋 Onboarding sessions you helped with 🚀 Changes you’ve initiated 🗣️ Workshops you’ve conducted 🧑🏫 Mentoring sessions you’ve coached 🌟 Endorsements you’ve received 🤝 Collaboration wins across departments 🧹 How you’ve dealt with design debt 📦 Successful scoping and getting buy-in 🛠️ Tools or systems you’ve introduced 🔧 Bugs or issues you proactively resolved 📣 Coordinating communication in teams 🔮 Lessons you’ve learned 🧯 Conflicts you’ve resolved There are plenty of things that can go in such a document. Typically it’s a simple Notion page or a Google Doc that you set up once and keep updating regularly. One useful habit that can help there is to always update the document after a retrospective session with your team and around a month later. The reason for that is that you’ll need to accumulate and add concrete evidence and results of the impact of your work. Typically business metrics are lagging metrics, so it will take a while until you get some results. One word of caution: it doesn’t work well if you update in huge and bulky batches as memories become a bit blurry and details get lost. Also, don’t think just about the design work — work also happens outside of the design work as we saw in the list above. Also, as Stephen Kernan noted once, whenever possible, try linking your accomplishments to the career ladder one level above your current role. If you can prove that you’ve been performing at the next level for past 3-6 months, you will make the case for your promotion strong and more obvious. (Useful templates in the comments below ↓)

Don’t Just List Tasks—Showcase Your Value on Your CV Your CV should not be a list of the jobs you’ve held—it should demonstrate the unique impact you’ve made throughout your career. Yet, so many CVs end up being little more than task lists. Take a look at this. 👉 Instead of saying, “Managed social media accounts,” Say, “Increased social media engagement by 45% in six months through targeted campaigns.” See how one focuses on tasks and the other highlights results? Employers want to see the value you bring, not just what you were told to do. A Client’s Success Story: I recently worked with a client who was in marketing. Her CV initially read like a job description: “Created email campaigns” and “Collaborated with sales teams.” While this is great for using key works and incorporating the job description, it just doesn't have any impact. We reframed her experience to focus on results: ✅ “Launched email campaigns that boosted open rates by 25%, contributing to a 15% increase in sales leads.” ✅ “Developed cross-departmental strategies with sales, resulting in a streamlined funnel and increased conversion rates by 10%.” The result? Not only did her CV stand out, but it led to interviews where she could discuss her real contributions. Here are some ways you can showcase value on your CV: 1️⃣ Use numbers, percentages, or metrics to quantify your achievements. 2️⃣ Highlight the outcomes and benefits of your work, not just the actions. 3️⃣ Start bullet points with strong action verbs like boosted, increased, reduced, streamlined, or led. Make it clear why you’re the one who can deliver results. www.joanneleecoaching.com 👉🏻Employers - let us know in the comments what you are looking for on a CV in 2025. #cvwriting #careercoaching #careerdevelopment #jobsearchtips

Standing out in a sea of applicants has nothing to do with being “passionate”, avoiding certain words, or squeezing your CV into two pages. It comes down to one thing. Stop making your resume about you. Start making it a value proposition. Right now most resumes read like a Wikipedia entry. Duties. Responsibilities. A career summary paragraph that says everything and nothing. A list of achievements with no context. And none of it helps a hiring manager understand whether you can solve the problems they actually have. If you want to stand out, change the entire framing. Replace the “about me” section with a clear value proposition. I help businesses do A, B and C. I achieve this using my skills in X, Y and Z. And I have delivered these outcomes in roles at Company 1, Company 2 and Company 3. (That's your opening paragraph, kick out the Summary or objective paragraph that most folks use.) That’s what hiring managers care about. Not your adjectives. Your ability to solve their problems. Next step. Add a hiring remit to every job you’ve ever held. Not the job title. Not the duties. The remit. Why you were actually hired. The commercial purpose of the role. The thing the business needed fixed or delivered when they chose you. Ideally that remit aligns to the value proposition you’re claiming today. You’re showing consistency. You’re showing intent. You’re showing that others have hired you for precisely the thing you’re positioning yourself to do next. Then link every achievement in that role to the remit. Not “I improved sales.” “I improved sales by 10 percent over an 18 month period between 2023 and 2025.” Not “I led a team.” “I inherited a team of five with low performance, lifted output by 30 percent and reduced turnover within a 12 month cycle.” This is what separates candidates who stand out from candidates who blend into the stack of 172 identical applications. A clear value proposition. A documented track record tied to that proposition. And achievements that show commercial impact, not activity. If your current resume isn’t doing that, you’re not competing with other candidates. You’re competing with your own formatting choices. P.S. If you want help tightening your value proposition, I’m always happy to take a quick look and point you in the right direction. I am just a DM away. P.P.S What might really knock your socks off, is the impact this resume prep has on your ability to sell your narrative AT INTERVIEW!

Your CV isn’t just a list of responsibilities. It’s your personal business case. When a hiring manager reads your CV, they’re making one calculation: “If I pay this person £X, what return will I get?” If you’re in sales, it’s easy to talk in revenue generated. But in Finance or support roles, it’s a little trickier. That’s where achievements come in. Not generic ones - real, measurable results that show why you stand out from the rest of the shortlist. Think in time or money saved, and quantify where possible. If you can’t give a number, give a percentage. For example: ✅ Reduced month-end close from 10 to 6 days ✅ Saved £250k annually by automating a manual reporting process ✅ Cut debtor days by 35% through improved credit control ✅ Identified £1.2m of cost leakage in supplier contracts ✅ Reduced error rates by 80% through process redesign Whatever salary you’re asking for, your CV should show you can deliver multiple times that value in return. *Top tip* Keep a running note of the improvements you’ve made as you go. If you’ve got a continuous improvement mindset, these things happen naturally... The challenge is remembering them in three years when it’s time to update your CV!

Have a shitty memory like me and struggle to talk about your accomplishments? Try this: I used to blank during 1:1s. Not because I wasn’t doing anything impactful - but because I couldn’t remember the details. So I started keeping a simple “running doc” of my accomplishments. By creating a running doc, I was able to log my accomplishments in real time so when it came to 1:1s or quarterly reviews, I had talking points and quantifiable data I could easily reference and speak to. My doc was never highly organized or complicated, so if you’re not a Notion pro, don’t worry. I’d simply create mine in Google Docs and name it “Q2 2023 Accomplishments,” for example. Then, each quarter, as soon as I: Hit a new goal Improved a process Completed a project Reached a milestone Met with a XFN partner Took an internal training Networked with a colleague Made progress on an initiative Mentored and trained a new hire Exceeded expectations on an SLA …I’d create a new bullet point with that accomplishment, any relevant data, include the date, and move on. By incorporating this into my daily routine, each update would take less than 3 minutes of my time and was super manageable. Then, each week during my 1:1s with my manager, I would come prepared with an agenda that included my weekly: Wins Opportunities Challenges Updates (projects, general, personal) Questions Without a running doc, I can say with confidence it wouldn’t have been as easy for me to communicate my value and the impact I had during our 1:1s and at the end of the half going into performance reviews. As a result, I’d highly recommend creating one if it’s not already a part of your routine! Plus, if you ever find yourself looking for a new role, having something like this is super helpful when it comes to job searching and updating your resume. Do you do something similar?

Last month, I worked with a client who had just been laid off after working with the same employer for almost 20 years. 🎉 He just emailed to let me know that he landed a job offer - less than a week after his materials were finalized! With his permission, I'm sharing his anonymized materials to help others who might be facing similar challenges. Here are a few of the changes we made: #1 We prioritized the 3 Rs Because space on the page - and the attention span of hiring managers - can be limited, we use the 3 R test to decide which roles to include: ✅ Recent: Did the work take place in the past 10 years? The more recent, the more likely it should be included. ✅ Relevant: Is the role or accomplishment directly related to the role that this person is targeting. ✅ Really Impressive: If an older role was with a very well-known company, or they help a more impressive title than their more recent work, we would likely include it. If you find yourself questioning whether to include an older role, ask yourself if it meets two of the three R criteria. #2 We showcased his wins His original resume consisted of 100% tasks. We replaced all of his original bullets with impressive, quantitative descriptions of what he had achieved. To gather these details, we developed a custom questionnaire for him with over 100 questions - which is something we do for all our clients. #3 We scrapped the functional format Instead, we used a chronological layout. Rather than trying to bury the 18 years that he had been with his most recent employer, we listed the multiple promotions he help during that time to show his professional evolution. #4 We removed roles from the 1980s and 90s. In his earlier version, he listed every job he's had since college. As a general rule of thumb, a resume shouldn't go back more than 15 years. This is largely due to the unfortunate presence of ageism, but also due to the attention span/spacing constraints mentioned earlier. #5 We ditched the 'Objective' We replaced it with a modern 'Executive Summary' featuring his most impressive career highlights. This way, we're capturing the employer's attention at first glance.

Most geoscientists have a resume. But if you don't have a 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦, you'll struggle to remember your own greatness when it’s time to update it. This is not a resume you send out with applications or to recruiters - it's your internal career database, your personal archive of everything you've accomplished. Building one also helps you spot trends - those subtle shifts in your skills, interests and impact that show how your career has evolved. Once you open your eyes to these, you can start asking yourself what these shifts mean for your future direction. Here's what I recommend to my clients: 1️⃣ Set a timer for 25 minutes and 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗷𝗼𝗯𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀. Don’t format - just write. Work backward through your career. Go back as far as you can - even if you won’t use that lab tech experience from 25 years ago on a resume today, it’s still valuable to acknowledge. 2️⃣ Grab your 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 and spend another focused session filling in what you missed. Repeat these sessions until you’ve captured your full career story. 3️⃣ Review what you’ve written and format it as 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀. Move from narrative to resume-style bullet points. Example: “Reduced plume-area uncertainty by 40% by modeling contaminant transport using MODFLOW.” 4️⃣ Reframe your bullet points for impact using three lenses - 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹, 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀, and 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹. Ask: 𝘚𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵? 𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳? - 𝗧𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹: What did I do to address the challenge?   - 𝗕𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀: What was the driver and value created?   - 𝗕𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹: How did I demonstrate things like teamwork, communication, or leadership? At this point, you have your master database of experiences and accomplishments. If you are ever in another job search, you have a great resource from which to pull resume content. A 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦 is more than a document - it’s a record of a career well lived. As you read it, take a moment for introspection: What have you learned? What insights have you gained? How have you changed? Do you have a 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘦? If not, start building one this week - your future self will thank you.