How to show impact on your CV, whatever your job

When creating a CV or cover letter we all want to clearly demonstrate the impact of our achievements in current and previous roles, but not all jobs offer those hard numbers as evidence of performance. Here, career experts share some practical ways to showcase your professional impact in your next job application, from rethinking your CV's purpose to how best to highlight your achievements.

How to show impact on your CV without numbers

When your role doesn't involve concrete results or figures, highlighting the impact employers ask for can feel tough. It's something career coach Vicki Marinker ACC often sees in her work with professionals in the communications sector, where roles influence a company’s bottom line but it can be difficult to draw a direct correlation to those figures.

"I'm used to working with clients and candidates to make sure that their CV talks about their achievements, but it might not necessarily have the kind of facts and figures, and profit, as a result of the impact of their achievements," she said in a recent LinkedIn Live interview.

Nevertheless, Marinker explains that you can still highlight your impact effectively. To do so, she suggests dividing each of the sections on your CV into "responsibilities" and "achievements".

The responsibilities part is intended to "set the scene", which includes explaining what you were hired to do in a role. The achievements part is to show how well you delivered on those responsibilities and any objectives. Examples of this might include the number of attendees you managed to attract to a work event.

In addition, Marinker says it’s worth considering the impact you might have had in other areas of your organisation.

Communicating credibility

In order to demonstrate professional impact beyond numbers and targets, applicants can also highlight awards, public recognition, press features and team successes, advises personal brand and career coach DR SAM L. .

It's also important to showcase credibility for a role, she says: "Clearly explain how your expertise, and experience throughout your career position you as an authority in this role."?

Using the right "action" words is another way to demonstrate your value, according to Liz Sebag-Montefiore , co-founder of career and talent management consultancy 10Eighty. "Show how your accomplishments translate into benefits for your employer, preferably tangible benefits that can be backed with evidence as required," she advises.

A good place to do this is in the cover letter, by highlighting successful projects you've been involved in and the "processes you used to facilitate your part in that success".

Sebag-Montefiore adds that candidates should be also prepared to "talk the talk at interview" to back up their CV, adding that it's worth practising these conversations beforehand.?

Treating your CV like a dating profile

Focusing on the purpose of your CV can help shape how you write it. Ed Goodman , digital business coach at Multiverse, says it can feel similar to putting together a dating profile: "The purpose of the latter is not to get you married, but to get you a date."

Similarly with a CV, the aim is to secure an interview "so you can sell yourself in person and get the job".?

Like Marinker, Goodman urges applicants to make their CV relevant to each role, treating "each application as the only one you're making".

He says that the opening personal profile paragraph is where candidates can really make themselves stand out: "There may be many with your education and interests, but there is only one you."

Meanwhile, Lynch advises that this bio paragraph should be no more than three sentences long. To help craft a compelling opening, she suggests imagining how you would introduce yourself to a new colleague if you had already landed the job.?

How to tailor your CV to any job description

Ensuring your CV is tailored for each individual application and mirroring the language in a job description is one way to help you stand out, says Marinker. However, it might feel challenging when the job description is long.

If this is the case, Marinker suggests trying to pick out the key themes that come out in the job description. By taking this approach, she says that "you’ll probably be able to identify maybe four or five competencies" that a potential employer is looking for and base your CV around those points.

For instance, a desire for management skills might be alluded to with points about "relationship building and managing people", Marinker says.

She emphasises the importance of fitting in those key words when highlighting your experiences and skills, as there's a tendency to skim CVs, with studies showing recruiters and hiring managers can spend just seconds looking over them.??

Presentation is key: "Make sure that you've broken it up with bullet points and lots of white space … communicating really concisely what your skillset is," Marinker concludes.

What other tips do you have for showing impact on your CV? Share them in the comments below.

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Admit what you don't know

"So many people bluff their way through things to the detriment of those around them," says Recruitment Entrepreneur chairman James Caan. However, he argues that this can actually lead to less precise information and slower decision making. Being upfront about what you don't know can not only allow us to find answers more rapidly but also create a sense of humility and honesty, Caan explains.

By Vicky McKeever , associate news editor at LinkedIn News UK .