The #1 CV Mistake Costing You Executive Opportunities (And How to Fix It)
After reviewing thousands of executive CVs over the past decade, I can tell you exactly what separates candidates who land interviews from those who don't.
It's whether you can prove the impact you made.
The Problem: Responsibilities vs. Results
Here's what I see in 90% of executive CVs:
"Responsible for managing a team of 50 engineers" "Led digital transformation initiatives" "Oversaw budget and resource allocation"
These statements tell me your job title. They don't tell me if you were any good at it.
Now look at this version:
"Scaled engineering team from 15 to 50 while reducing time-to-market by 40% and cutting developer costs by £2M annually"
Which candidate are you calling for an interview?
The Formula: Action + Metric + Business Impact
Every bullet point on your CV should follow this structure:
[Action Verb] + [What You Did] + [Quantified Result] + [Business Impact]
Bad Example:
"Managed customer success team and improved satisfaction scores"
Good Example:
"Rebuilt customer success function, increasing NPS from 32 to 78 while reducing churn by 45%, protecting £8M ARR"
The difference? The second version tells a complete story with measurable outcomes.
Real Examples: Before & After
Operations Executive - Before: "Responsible for supply chain operations across European markets. Managed vendor relationships and logistics coordination."
Operations Executive - After: "Redesigned end-to-end European supply chain, consolidating 47 vendors to 12 strategic partners. Reduced logistics costs by €4.2M annually while cutting delivery times from 6 days to 48 hours."
Technology Executive - Before: "Led cloud migration project for enterprise systems. Managed team of developers and infrastructure engineers."
Technology Executive - After: "Orchestrated $12M cloud migration completing 18 months ahead of schedule and $3.8M under budget. Reduced infrastructure costs by 64% ($4.5M annually) while improving uptime from 99.2% to 99.97%."
What If You Don't Have the Numbers?
The numbers existed. You just didn't capture them. Here's how to reconstruct them:
Revenue Impact:
How much revenue did your team/division generate?
Did it grow during your tenure? By how much?
Cost Savings:
Did you reduce headcount needs through automation?
Did you renegotiate contracts?
Did you eliminate waste?
Efficiency Gains:
Did processes get faster?
Did quality improve?
Did you reduce errors or complaints?
Team Building:
How many direct reports?
Team growth percentage?
Retention rate?
If you can't find exact numbers, make educated estimates. It's better to write "Reduced processing time by approximately 30-40%" than to not quantify at all.
The 60% Rule
Take your CV right now and do this exercise:
Highlight every sentence that contains a number
Count them
Divide by total bullet points
If less than 60% of your bullets contain quantified results, you're leaving opportunities on the table.
What Happens When You Get This Right
I've seen candidates transform their job search by fixing this one thing:
VP of Product - Went from 3 interviews in 6 months to 12 interviews in 6 weeks. Landed a £280K role.
CTO - Received 4 competing offers within 30 days and negotiated compensation up 40%.
COO - Hired directly by a PE firm as CEO of a portfolio company at £420K base.
The difference? Their CVs proved they could deliver results.
Your Action Plan
Here's what to do today:
Open your CV
Pick your top 5 achievements
For each one, answer:
What specific action did you take?
What was the measurable result?
What was the business impact?
Rewrite using the formula
Repeat for every role
This takes 2-3 hours. It might be the most valuable 2-3 hours you invest in your career.
The Bottom Line
At NextIn, we review thousands of executive CVs every year. The ones that get our attention—and our clients' attention—are the ones that prove impact with numbers.
It's not about embellishing. It's about properly communicating the value you've already created in a way that busy hiring managers can quickly assess.
A hiring manager spends 30-45 seconds on your CV in the first pass. If they don't see quantified impact in those 30 seconds, they move to the next candidate.
Don't let poor CV writing cost you opportunities you've earned through years of excellent work.
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