Guide

CV bullet points: weak vs strong, by field

The same pattern, 45 times over, across nine job families. Find your field, then use the shape — not the exact numbers.

Most CV bullets describe a duty. A screener reads a duty and learns nothing they couldn't already guess from your job title — "responsible for," "helped with," "involved in" are the tell. The fix is always the same shape: what changed, by how much, over what period.

Below are 45 real rewrites, weak on the left, strong on the right, organised by field. They come straight out of CV Studio's own phrase bank — the same reference table the paid tool ships with — not invented for this page. If your field isn't a perfect match, read the two or three closest to yours: the pattern transfers even when the job doesn't.

45 examples

The full bank, by field

Sales

Weak

Responsible for the sales pipeline

Strong

Managed a 40-account pipeline, closing £480K against a £400K target

Weak

Helped the team hit targets

Strong

Delivered 118% of quota for six consecutive quarters

Weak

Handled key clients

Strong

Retained the top 5 accounts through a price rise, keeping 96% of revenue

Weak

Involved in new business

Strong

Opened 23 new accounts, adding £310K of first-year revenue

Weak

Worked on improving conversion

Strong

Rebuilt the discovery call script; demo-to-close rose from 18% to 27%

Marketing

Weak

Responsible for social media

Strong

Grew following from 2K to 18K in 11 months, driving 320+ qualified leads

Weak

Helped with campaigns

Strong

Ran 14 campaigns in a year; the best three produced 61% of pipeline

Weak

Managed the content calendar

Strong

Published 60 pieces per quarter, lifting organic traffic 2.4M impressions

Weak

Assisted with email marketing

Strong

Rewrote the onboarding sequence; drop-off fell from 40% to 12% in six weeks

Weak

Involved in reporting

Strong

Built the attribution model the team now uses to allocate a £250K budget

Operations

Weak

Responsible for the weekly report

Strong

Automated the weekly report, cutting it from 4 hours to 20 minutes

Weak

Helped improve processes

Strong

Redesigned onboarding, reducing ramp-up time from 14 days to 6

Weak

Managed suppliers

Strong

Renegotiated 8 supplier contracts, saving £62K annually

Weak

Involved in stock control

Strong

Cut stock discrepancies from 7% to under 1% across three sites

Weak

Worked on health and safety

Strong

Ran the audit that closed 31 open actions and passed inspection first time

Engineering

Weak

Worked on the platform

Strong

Cut API p95 latency from 900ms to 210ms, removing the top customer complaint

Weak

Helped with bug fixes

Strong

Cleared a 140-ticket backlog and cut new defect rate by half

Weak

Involved in code reviews

Strong

Introduced review standards adopted by all 12 engineers

Weak

Responsible for deployments

Strong

Moved releases from monthly to daily; rollback rate stayed under 2%

Weak

Assisted with testing

Strong

Raised test coverage from 34% to 81%, catching 3 production-class bugs pre-release

Customer support

Weak

Handled customer enquiries

Strong

Resolved 50+ tickets daily at 96% satisfaction across 18 months

Weak

Helped reduce complaints

Strong

Rewrote the top 20 help articles; contact volume fell 23%

Weak

Responsible for escalations

Strong

Owned escalations for 400 accounts, cutting resolution time from 3 days to 8 hours

Weak

Involved in training

Strong

Trained 9 new starters; their first-month quality scores beat the team average

Weak

Worked on the knowledge base

Strong

Built the knowledge base now deflecting roughly 1,100 tickets a month

Admin & office

Weak

Responsible for diary management

Strong

Ran diaries for 4 directors across 3 time zones with zero missed commitments

Weak

Helped organise events

Strong

Delivered a 200-person conference 12% under budget

Weak

Involved in invoicing

Strong

Processed 300 invoices monthly, reducing late payments from 18% to 4%

Weak

Managed office supplies

Strong

Consolidated suppliers from 11 to 3, saving £9K a year

Weak

Assisted with onboarding

Strong

Built the starter pack that cut IT setup queries by two thirds

Finance

Weak

Responsible for month-end

Strong

Cut the month-end close from 9 working days to 4

Weak

Helped with budgeting

Strong

Owned a £2.1M departmental budget, landing within 1.5% of forecast

Weak

Involved in reporting

Strong

Automated 6 recurring reports, releasing ~20 analyst hours a month

Weak

Worked on reconciliations

Strong

Cleared a 400-line reconciliation backlog and kept it at zero for a year

Weak

Assisted with audit

Strong

Prepared the audit file that closed with no material findings

Healthcare

Weak

Responsible for patient care

Strong

Managed a caseload of 22 patients, with readmissions 15% below unit average

Weak

Helped with rota planning

Strong

Rebuilt the rota, cutting agency spend by £40K a year

Weak

Involved in training staff

Strong

Trained 30 staff on the new protocol; compliance reached 98% in a month

Weak

Worked on record keeping

Strong

Led the move to digital notes across a 45-bed ward with no data loss

Weak

Assisted with audits

Strong

Ran the infection-control audit that lifted the ward from amber to green

Education

Weak

Responsible for teaching

Strong

Taught 5 classes of 30; results rose from 62% to 78% at grade 4+

Weak

Helped struggling students

Strong

Ran an intervention group of 12; 10 moved up at least one grade

Weak

Involved in curriculum

Strong

Rewrote the KS3 scheme of work now used across the department

Weak

Managed the department budget

Strong

Managed a £18K budget and funded two new courses within it

Weak

Assisted with parents evenings

Strong

Introduced a booking system that lifted parental attendance from 54% to 81%

The pattern, if your field isn't above

Every strong rewrite above follows the same three-part shape: what changed, by how much, over what period. If you don't have your own field's example, apply that shape to whatever you actually did. A defensible estimate beats no number at all — "roughly 30% faster" is still evidence; "faster" alone is still a duty.

If you're not sure whether your CV has this problem at all, the free checker below reads your actual file and flags exactly which bullets are still duties, not results — no upload, nothing leaves your browser.

Score your own CV against this pattern — free.

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