How to Put Achievements on a CV: List for 2024

Achievements in a CV are just plain impressive; there’s no way around it. Perhaps you've come across a CV brimming with actions, initiatives, and tangible results, leaving you feeling disheartened. How can one compete with someone who appears to have been consistently excelling since starting their career?

You possess far more achievements than you realise. This guide will show you how to put key achievements on a CV so you exceed recruiters’ expectations.

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Key achievements for a CV—example

Now, that’s what we call a modern CV template that highlights key achievements. Here’s how to write an equally impactful CV:

What are the achievements to put on a CV?

Achievements for a CV, also known as CV accomplishments or successes, are tangible results or contributions that attest to your skills, abilities, and impact in your past roles or projects. The most powerful achievements for a CV include:

• Meeting or exceeding company targets.
• Contributing to good customer service.
• Implementing successful projects or initiatives.
• Receiving awards or recognition.
• Increasing revenue or sales for the company.
• Identifying and solving complex problems.
• Saving a significant amount of money.
• Improving processes or efficiency.

Including achievements on your CV provides concrete evidence of your capabilities and enhances your credibility as a candidate. It helps employers grasp your qualifications, knowledge, and skills and how they can translate into success.

Benefits of key achievements on a CV

Past behaviour is generally considered a good predictor of future actions, based on behavioural decision-making theory. If you achieved something for a previous employer, you likely possess the skills, experience, and work ethic needed to achieve similar successes for a future boss. This is incredibly useful information for a recruiter or a hiring manager.

Achievements also indirectly point to other invaluable insights into your suitability for a given role. They indicate the skills you possess and at what proficiency level you have them. They can also provide indirect evidence of how well you could cooperate with colleagues and others.

A strong CV summary will convince the recruiter you’re the perfect candidate. Save time and choose a ready-made personal statement written by career experts and adjust it to your needs in the LiveCareer CV builder.

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Where to put achievements in a CV?

When people think about achievements, they often picture someone climbing a mountain or winning a trophy. In the context of writing achievements in a CV, the most obvious association is that of awards, prizes, and accolades. This association is not wrong, but it misses essentials.

Below, you’ll see the CV sections that can be packed with key achievements going beyond just rewards.

Awards, prizes, and accolades section

Writing up awards, prizes, and accolades in your CV is simple—there are just a few things to remember. Firstly, give the name of the award you won, the awarding body (if necessary), and the date or year it was awarded. Secondly, list your awards in reverse-chronological order in a separate CV section.

Here’s an example straight from a customer service CV:

Job descriptions

The achievements highlighted within job descriptions are paramount and carry significant weight in a CV. Ideally, these achievements should constitute the bulk of the content within your work experience section.

An ‘achievement’, in this case, is the brief description of an action you took, often in response to a challenge of one kind or another, and the benefits that went to your employer as a result.

Build each achievement around a strong verb in the active voice. Use ‘negotiated contracts’ rather than ‘contracts were negotiated.’ This is about what you did, but don’t use first- or third-person personal pronouns.

You should have up to six achievements for each job description and 5–9 for more complex and involved roles. Put your job descriptions in reverse-chronological order. You can use the following template to create a subheading for each job description:

[Job Title]

[Company Name, Location]

[Dates of Employment]

If you struggle to give at least three achievements per job description, list your duties. Then, make them into achievements by noting the scale at which you did things. For example, ‘helped customers find products’ might become ‘helped 15+ customers a day find the products they were looking for’.

Try to fully or partially quantify every single achievement. If you don’t have enough work experience, consider writing a student CV or graduate CV instead— both offer ways around this.

Here’s a sample job description from a software developer CV:

Education section

If you’re writing a CV with no experience or a school-leaver CV, you may often lack job-related accomplishments to list in a CV. Here’s where the education CV section comes in handy. You can enrich it with honours, publications, awards, and relevant extra-curricular activities. They’re your achievements, too.

Here’s a sample from a CV for a part-time job:

CV profile

A CV personal profile, personal statement, or even personal summary is your CV’s opening paragraph. It’s where you introduce yourself to the recruiter. Though it goes at the top of your CV, it’s best to write it last when you have other sections ready. It also serves as a CV summary, so it’s a good place to add your CV achievements as well.

Here’s an account manager CV personal statement example:

How to write achievements for a CV (+ examples)

The most important thing to remember when writing a CV is not to write a tedious laundry list of duties. Recruiters know what your everyday tasks look like. They are more interested in what you achieved in previous positions. And though accomplishments depend on your industry, there is a way to turn each job duty into an achievement regardless of what you do professionally. Use the PAR (Problem, Action, Result) formula.

Here are some key achievements examples that show what the end result should look like:

• Maintained an overall first-contact resolution rate of just over 90%.
• Modified call platform settings, resulting in >5% increase in capacity at no extra cost.
• Exceeded minimum caller satisfaction rating with an average of 4.8 out of 5.0.
• Increased conversion rates by 10-40% over two years.
• Reduced stock losses by 30%.
• Exceeded monthly sales target by a minimum of 5% for 18 months in a row.
• Trained 11 incoming part-time staff members regarding the restaurant's procedures.
• Developed 11 novel reporting solutions using C#.
• Received a greater proportion of CQR requests than most colleagues due to consistently high-resolution rates (>85%).
• Exceeded minimum caller satisfaction rate with monthly averages of 4.7-4.9 (out of 5).
• Developed financial models for new transactions, increasing confidence ratings by 30-40% across the board.

Always quantify achievements by including numbers whenever possible, emphasising the benefits that accrued to your employer as a priority. You’ll need to estimate some numbers, so keep them facts-based and be ready to justify yourself. 

You don’t have to be a CV writing expert. In the LiveCareer CV builder you’ll find ready-made content for every industry and position, which you can then add with a single click.

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Extra tips for including achievements in your CV

Getting these kinds of achievements in your CV is the biggest and most important step in preparing a job application. If you have relevant work experience, your CV and a cover letter will be built around these achievements. Once you get the hang of them, everything else is simple.

Here are some extra tips to make the whole thing even easier:

• Don’t force achievements in your CV. If you have little to no experience (including experience gained through volunteering, work placements, or internships), focus on skills or other qualifications. The effectiveness of achievements lies in how clearly they point to your competence and engagement in previous jobs.
• Use alternative CV formats if you’re a student, recent graduate, freelancer, or career changer. They put less emphasis on work history and more on skills and education. A skills-based CV format suits many freelancers and students better, whereas career changers might benefit from a hybrid CV format.
• Estimate the numbers associated with your duties and achievements. But don’t just pick plausible-sounding numbers out of thin air: be ready to explain how you reached each number.
• Proofread the awards and achievements in your CV at least twice. Then get someone else to check over them and the rest of your job application.
• Use bullet points for all your achievements. Keep them pared down to as few words as possible.

Lastly, your choice of a CV font can play a huge role in the overall presentation of your application. Go with something understated like Noto, Garamond, Liberation, or Arial. Speaking of overall presentation, remember to save or export your work in PDF to protect your formatting unless, of course, you’re asked for something else.

Sounds too hard? View dedicated CV writing guides with key achievements to get inspired:

• Administrator CV
• Architecture CV
• Bartender CV
• Computer science CV
• Data analyst CV
• Digital marketing CV
• Football CV
• Graphic designer CV
• Hospitality CV
• HR CV
• IT CV
• Medical CV
• Office manager CV
• Personal trainer CV
• PhD CV
• Project manager CV
• Sales CV
• Shop assistant CV
• Software engineer CV
• Warehouse operative CV

I hope this article has given you some important knowledge about key achievements for a CV. If you have any comments, questions, or feedback, please drop a line in the comments section below.

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Our editorial team has reviewed this article for compliance with Livecareer’s editorial guidelines. It’s to ensure that our expert advice and recommendations are consistent across all our career guides and align with current CV and cover letter writing standards and trends. We’re trusted by over 10 million job seekers, supporting them on their way to finding their dream job. Each article is preceded by research and scrutiny to ensure our content responds to current market trends and demand.