Career Expert Warns 'Responsible For' Is Weakening CVs
An employment expert says overuse of the phrase “responsible for” on CVs fails to show real achievements, urging jobseekers to focus on outcomes instead.
Two words hurting job applications
Jobseekers are being advised to reconsider a phrase that appears throughout most CVs: “responsible for”. According to Chris DeCarolis, an employment expert at PEO Metrics, the phrase only outlines expected duties rather than proving what a candidate actually achieved.
DeCarolis said the wording is not wrong, but incomplete. He explained that recruiters already understand the general responsibilities tied to common job titles such as administrator or marketing manager, and are instead looking for evidence of impact, whether that means solving a problem, improving a process or delivering a measurable result.
Speed of screening makes wording crucial
The advice comes amid research showing that recruiters spend only a few seconds scanning a CV during initial screening, with one study putting the average at around 7.4 seconds. Because attention spans are so short, DeCarolis argues that meaningful evidence of performance needs to be visible immediately, rather than buried under generic descriptions of duties.
He warned that when every bullet point starts with “responsible for”, CVs can end up reading like job adverts rather than personal records of achievement, making it difficult for employers to differentiate between candidates who held similar roles but performed very differently.
A simple fix: action, scope, result
DeCarolis recommends restructuring CV bullet points around three elements: the action taken, its scope, and the resulting outcome. For example, “responsible for handling customer complaints” could become a statement noting the number of complaints resolved weekly alongside a satisfaction rating. Similarly, “responsible for social media accounts” could be rewritten to highlight the number of platforms managed and the increase in engagement achieved.
Useful opening verbs, he suggests, include words such as “increased”, “reduced”, “launched”, “trained”, “negotiated”, “coordinated” and “improved”.
Specific details matter as much as numbers
DeCarolis stressed that not every achievement needs to include a percentage or statistic. Applicants can instead reference the number of people they supported, the volume of work managed, a tight deadline met, or an improvement made to a process. He noted that specific detail, such as describing responsibility for scheduling a team of a particular size, communicates far more than a vague statement of duty.
He concluded that a CV should demonstrate more than simply holding a job title. It should show what changed, improved or succeeded as a direct result of the applicant’s presence in the role.