Responsibilities Dilute Your Message

Responsibilities take up a huge part of most resumes, and that’s unfortunate. I say unfortunate because the space most people devote to responsibilities could be used much more effectively.

If you have a compelling reason to list responsibilities, follow these few rules: 

• Keep it simple.
• Keep it short.
• Keep it relevant.

The only reason to list responsibilities is to give the gatekeeper a sense of what your job involves, because it tells them nothing else. You can be responsible for anything, but it doesn’t mean you did it well. My teenage son was responsible for keeping his room clean. Need I say more? Let’s look at the dictionary’s definition.

Responsibility definition: 

1. The state, quality, or fact of being responsible.

2. Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden.

Example sentences:

1. We have a responsibility to protect the environment.

2. The government’s responsibility is to serve the public.

3. Every parent has a responsibility to raise a good child.

4. Teachers have a responsibility to educate our children.

As you can see, just because someone is responsible for something, doesn’t mean they do it right.

Responsibilities From Real Resumes.

• Responsible for designing new mobile phone for burgeoning smartphone market.
• Responsible for extreme cost-cutting measures and yield improvements.
• Responsible for building world-class engineering group and championing design of revolutionary handset poised to be number one in market.

When I read something like this on a resume, the first thing I think is—great, this person was responsible for a lot—but did they accomplish any of it?

These Questions Immediately Come To Mind:

• Did they get the phone designed, and how did it fare in the market?
• Were they able to cut costs and improve yields? By how much?
• Did this “revolutionary” handset even get to market, let alone take the number one spot?

Okay, so it’s great that their list raised a few questions, but if the next resume I pick up shows me what they did instead of what they were responsible for, guess who’s getting called in for an interview? Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

Accomplishments:

• Built an engineering team that designed, then launched, a new mobile phone for burgeoning smartphone market.
• Cut costs by 12% and improved yields by 15%.
• Launched product on time and captured 2% of worldwide market (12% more than projected) within first year.

Final Note on Responsibilities

If you feel you absolutely have to include a few responsibilities on your resume, focus on the key ones, the ones relevant to the job you’re considering. Convert as many as you can to accomplishments and leave the insignificant ones off. You’ll dilute your message and have less impact if you include minor things with big ones.

The problem with resumes is that gatekeepers cannot interpret results by looking at a piece of paper. You need to provide gatekeepers with a way to get something meaningful from the resume. Responsibilities are not the way to do that—accomplishments are.

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Tags: careers, responsibilities, resumes