- Rob Cancilla is an executive recruiter and résumé writer who reviews hundreds of résumés each week.
- Job seekers should switch from an activity-based résumé to a results-driven résumé.
- Doing so shows hiring managers that you drove impact, results, or improvements in your former roles.
As an executive recruiter and résumé writer, I review hundreds of résumés a week. The number one tip that I give to almost everyone on how to improve their résumé is switching from an activity-based résumé to a results-driven résumé.
This simple but impactful principle can be applied to any résumé and at any level, from student résumé to executive résumé.
My clients consistently get more interviews when they switch to a results-driven résumé. I recently had a client get six interviews in one week from making this change to her résumé, and another client just secured her first full-time role after job searching for over a year.
Why is switching from activity-based to results-driven important?
Hiring managers want to see that you drove impact, results, or improvements in your previous roles. By only listing out what you did in your position, you miss the opportunity to highlight the value you brought to the role, the team, and the organization.
There are three steps to developing a results-driven résumé:
- Identify and bullet out the attributes, activities, and functions of your role.
- Determine what does success or what are the measurable or impactful results from each of the bullet points. Believe it or not, almost every activity has a potentially positive effect.
- Highlight the results of the activity.
The framework for a result-driven résumé is:
VERB + ACTIVITY + RESULTS
or
VERB + RESULTS + ACTIVITY
Here are some examples:
Let’s say your first bullet point was: “Developed social media campaigns.”
This bullet outlines the activity, but doesn’t speak to the result or intended success of the activity. If you have quantitative results, this is an excellent opportunity to highlight those results.
An example of quantitative results might be: “Developed innovative social media campaigns to increase brand site traffic by 10%.”
Sometimes you won’t always have quantitative results to share. Here are two examples with the same bullet point that don’t highlight specific quantitative results, but still focus on being results-driven.
“Developed social media campaigns to increase brand awareness.”
OR
"Increased brand awareness by developing innovative social media campaigns."
By highlighting the results, quantitative or qualitative, we show the value and impact of the activity.
Often, the first response I hear from candidates is that their role does not have quantitative results or cannot show results. Once I help them breakdown the activity and what success looks like in each activity, we often can get to the results.
Here are a few more examples:
Administrative example:
Activity example: "Provided administrative support and organized medical records."
Results-driven example: "Improved patient check-in experience and office operations by organizing medical records."
Customer service example:
Activity example: "Provide quality customer service to customers."
Results-driven example: "Enhanced the customer experience by providing quality and personalized customer service."
Sales example:
Activity example: "Developed a pipeline of potential new business accounts."
Results driven example: "Developed a pipeline of potential new accounts to ensure that weekly, monthly, and quarterly sale goals were attained."
Recruiters and hiring managers spend seconds reviewing your résumé. By switching from activity driven to results-driven, you make it incredibly easy for them to identify the value and impact you made in your previous roles.
A good rule of thumb is to shoot for an 80/20 rule, where 80% of your bullet points on your résumé are results-driven. If you can do that, I can almost guarantee your job search will improve.