Why You Should Stop Listing Tasks and Responsibilities on Your Resume

Today, I reviewed what was probably the millionth resume filled with tasks and responsibilities.

When it comes to crafting a resume, many professionals think the more information they provide, the better. However, this isn’t true and it is important to understand the difference between job tasks and responsibilities versus your accomplishments.

As a job seeker, you should forget about listing out each task you completed or responsibility you held in each role and instead focus on highlighting the outcomes of your actions.

Place Your Focus on Accomplishments Not Responsibilities

When employers are sifting through resumes for potential candidates, they want to see how the candidate can benefit their organization with clear evidence that the candidate has succeeded in similar positions before.

Instead of providing a laundry list of tasks and responsibilities you had in each job role, focus on what you accomplished in those roles —the impact of your work rather than what was expected of you.

Your resume should provide proof that you are capable of making sound decisions that will drive business growth. This is done by including specific metrics such as revenue increases or costs savings that resulted from your work.

This way, employers can clearly see how much value you have brought to previous organizations and will be more likely to consider your candidacy based on the hope of similar value to their own organization.

Highlight Outcomes Rather Than Inputs

When writing your resume, it is important to remember that employers aren’t interested in seeing lists of responsibilities —they are interested in seeing what outputs came as a result of your efforts.

This paints a clearer picture for potential employers, triggering more interest in why they should hire you instead of someone else who doesn’t list any tangible data points on their document.

How To Transform Your Bullet Points

It is important for potential employers to understand the impactful outcomes that results from the decisions and strategies that you implemented during your career journey so far.

To transform your responsibilities-focused bullet points into impactful statements, use this formula: After I did X (bullet point as listed) Y happened and then front load your bullet point with the outcome.

• For example, if one of your responsibilities was managing staff turnover rate, don’t list “managed staff turnover rate” on your resume; instead give potential employers an idea of how successful you were at tackling the retention issues by providing more detail.
• Decreased staff turnover 25%, championing employee engagement + professional development initiatives to create an inclusive culture and more satisfied employees.

Employers already know what tasks and responsibilities are associated with the role they are seeking to fill; however, they don’t know how you will add value.

Highlighting accomplishments rather than simply listing out duties will help the employer quickly recognize how valuable you could be as part of their team.