Duties versus achievements
A duty describes the job. An achievement describes how well you did it.
- Duty: "Responsible for stock control."
- Achievement: "Ran weekly stock counts across 3,000+ lines and cut stock discrepancies by a third in six months."
Anyone in that job had the duty. Only you had that result.
The simple formula
Action + what you did + result. Start with a strong verb, say what you did and add the outcome, ideally with a number.
- Action verbs: led, built, reduced, increased, trained, resolved, delivered, improved, launched, streamlined.
- Results: time saved, money saved or earned, volume handled, errors reduced, customer or patient outcomes, targets met.
Questions that uncover your numbers
- How many customers, patients, students, orders or calls did you handle a day or week?
- How big was the budget, team, site or area you covered?
- Did you hit or beat a target? By how much?
- Did something get faster, cheaper, safer or more accurate after you changed it?
- Were you chosen to train others, cover a manager or join a project?
- Did you get positive feedback, awards or a promotion?
Estimates are fine if they are honest and you can explain them in an interview. Use words like "around" or "over" when you are not exact.
Before and after examples
| Job | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Retail | Served customers and worked the register. | Served 150+ customers a shift and consistently ranked in the store's top three for add-on sales. |
| Nursing | Provided patient care on a busy ward. | Cared for up to 6 patients a shift on a 28-bed surgical ward, and led the ward's falls-prevention checklist rollout. |
| Warehouse | Picked and packed orders. | Picked and packed 180+ orders a shift at 99.8% accuracy using RF scanners. |
| Admin | Managed diaries and filing. | Managed diaries for 4 executives and moved paper filing to SharePoint, saving the team several hours a week. |
| Hospitality | Worked as a barista. | Made 300+ coffees on peak mornings and trained 5 new baristas to café standard. |
| Trades | Completed electrical work on sites. | Completed residential and light commercial fit-outs across 40+ sites with zero safety incidents. |
Examples are for illustration only. Use your own real results.
When you really have no numbers
Describe the scope or the outcome instead: who relied on you, what improved, what you were trusted with. "Trusted to open and close the store alone within three months of starting" is still an achievement.