As your career progresses, you may find yourself in a frustrating position: your job title doesn’t match the scope of your responsibilities.
As a result, your job title can sometimes undersell your experience. If recruiters use this as a filter, it could result in you being overlooked.
Luckily, there are ways to position your experience effectively on your CV to demonstrate your progression and impact, no matter what your job title is.
In this blog, we share practical ways to bridge the gap so you can put your best professional foot forward in your job hunt.
Why Are Job Titles Sometimes Inaccurate?
There are several reasons that a job title doesn’t reflect the true responsibilities of the person performing it.
Often, it is due to the workplace itself. Start-up cultures, for example, are continuously evolving, and many staff will be required to take on additional responsibilities as the company grows – sometimes without this being formally recognised.
Alternatively, if you have been with a company for a long time, you could find yourself completing tasks that would typically sit with a higher position.
Finally, it is important to keep in mind the context of a job title. An Operations Manager in one company could lead five people. In another, they could lead 50 and therefore be qualified for Director-level positions.
How to Write Your CV for Career Progression
Demonstrate Your Seniority
When your job title doesn’t match your responsibilities, your goal within your CV will be to highlight two key facets of your professional experience: your impact and your leadership.
As much as possible, use quantifiable evidence to establish your credibility as a candidate.
When covering your current role, feature information around the scale of your work, such as:
- Size of team managed;
- Geographic reach;
- Budgets controlled.
The very inclusion of these numbers will help recruiters to understand that you operate above the implied level of your responsibilities.
We recommend including this key information in your Career Summary.
For example – If your job title is “Marketing Manager” but you have national coverage that qualifies you for Director-level roles, your Career Summary could say something like:
“Senior Marketing Professional overseeing national campaigns with a £5M annual budget and cross-functional teams across the UK.”
Clarify your Title
On average, recruiters will take six to seven seconds initially scanning through a CV – and your job title will be one of the first things they look at.
Changing your job title unofficially could cause discrepancies with your references, so try to avoid doing this. Instead, try to clarify or expand on your job title to provide more context around your work.
This is also important when your job title is quite specific to your organisation and may not have the same meaning externally. You should ensure your job title is universally recognisable to avoid confusion for recruiters.
For example:
Change “Operations Ninja” to “Operations Lead”
Change “Growth Hacker” to “Growth Specialist”
Bonus tip: Many recruiters will look at your LinkedIn profile after reviewing your CV, so use your headline to go into more detail about your role.
For example – Looking back at the “Marketing Manager” example in the previous section, an effective LinkedIn headline could be:
“Senior Marketing Leader | 10+ Years Driving National Brand Strategy & Growth |
Use Leadership-Focused Language
Throughout your CV, use action-based verbs that signal your leadership experience.
Always start by reviewing the job advert. The language used here will help you understand which terms to use throughout your application.
Instead of terms like:
- Implemented
- Supported
- Co-ordinated
Highlight your strategic influence with words like:
- Led
- Directed
- Oversaw
For example:
Instead of saying: “Managed nationwide marketing campaigns”.
Say: “Directed UK-wide marketing strategy, increasing achieving 24% YoY growth and increasing brand visibility nationally.”
Lead with Impact
Finally, as you think about your role, prioritise your long-term impact over your daily tasks on your CV.
As much as possible, use quantifiable examples of your leadership skills and results, such as:
- Return on investment;
- Increase in market share;
- Transformation initiatives;
- Efficiency improvements;
- Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
For example: If you are an experienced Executive Assistant who has performed beyond the scope of your duties to support senior management, don’t focus your CV around tasks like diary management, inbox oversight, and travel bookings.
Instead, strategically position your experience to demonstrate your experience operating within C-suite, with examples such as:
“Enabled 30% time savings for the Executive team, through proactive workflow redesign and vendor negotiation.”
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When approached strategically, your CV helps you sell your professional successes effectively – no matter what your current job title is.
And don’t forget! In a job interview, you will have plenty of opportunities to expand on your experience, skills, and results.
If you are unsure how to articulate your true value on your CV, we would love to help.
At The CV Guru, our team of writers work closely with senior-level professionals to create professional application documents to help you position your experience to take the next step on the career ladder.