How to create an effective achievement statement in your CV

An important aspect of having an effective CV, is to have distinctive achievement statements to make you stand out from the competition. At the end of the day, the recipient wants to see what you have achieved, and if your achievements do not stand out in your CV or they are difficult to decipher, then it will be extremely difficult for the recipient to consider you for an interview.

The achievement statement comprises of two parts : ACTION + RESULT. The action leads with a strong action word such as restructured , established or developed, and then a short explanation of the action that you had undertaken eg Developed a sales strategy that re-segmented the market and implemented a new account management model. Finally, the result should contain the actual result of the action eg resulted in the increase of sales by £12m in 12 months.

It is recommended that the result part is formatted in bold.

So combining the above parts of ACTION + RESULT, the achievement statement is as follows :-

“Developed a sales strategy that re-segmented the market and implemented a new account management model which resulted in the increase of sales by £12m in 12 months.”

It is also important that the achievement should be stated briefly and concisely, and any extra information can be discussed during the interview.