A CV is very valuable paper that defines anyone’s career. This document often tends to be the first interaction with a company and recruiters on your way to that interview seat. It is an excellent tool through which one could create the necessary impression if strategic enough. Indeed, in these situations, emphasizing your promotions might help get you to the next round of selection.
After all, having higher positions is an excellent marker for HR professionals. However, you need to be able to tell this story, showing how your journey has been, the positions you have held, how it happened and why you were chosen to climb another step.
This step is essential to have a strong narrative about your professional profile and your aspirations for the future. Therefore, when organizing your CV, it is worth taking the time to be strategic and make this information very clear to recruiters.
So, how do you do this? Below, we have prepared a very educational step-by-step guide to help you. By following each step, you will be able to highlight your promotions and make it clear that you are the ideal professional for the next vacancies you apply for. Ready to learn everything?
Promotions on your CV: a step-by-step guide to highlighting them
1 – The first professional experience on the list must be your current company
Both academic qualifications and professional experiences on a CV should be organized in reverse chronological order. In other words, current and most recent experiences come first, followed by older ones.
Then, enter the company you are currently working for and don’t forget to include how long you have been there. For example:
“XYZ Company | March 2017 – Present”
2 – Highlight your current position
Then, in a subtitle after the company, highlight your current position. It needs to be the star of your resume, showing the position you hold and how long you have been there. Here, be precise and translate titles, if necessary, following the standards for your field of expertise so that the recruiter understands exactly what you do.
For example, you could put your current job title like this:
“External Communications Manager | July 2023 – present”
3 – Enter the other positions you have held in the company, in the order of promotions
To make the fact that you have been promoted several times stand out, you can use the subtitles feature once again. This time, all positions prior to the current one will follow the same size pattern, without forgetting the length of time you have worked in each of them.
To have a clearer view, check the example below, following the idea of the previous item.
“External Communications Coordinator | May 2022 to July 2023
Senior Institutional Communications Analyst | January 2020 to May 2022
Institutional Communications Analyst | November 2018 to January 2020
Junior Institutional Communications Analyst | January 2017 to November 2018”
4 – Start the description by explaining why you were promoted
Once you’ve added all your titles and subtitles, it’s time to fill out descriptions for all of them. After all, recruiters don’t just want to know what positions you’ve held throughout your promotions. They also need to understand what exactly you did, what your accomplishments were, how you added value to the company, and why you were promoted.
So, start by talking about promotions. You can explain that you were promoted for achieving the established goals, delivering the expected results and performing above average, for example. The important thing is to be realistic and make it clear what happened for you to be recognized. See the example below in more concrete terms:
“Promoted to External Communications Manager after about a year as Coordinator of the area, a position in which I managed institutional communication campaigns for external stakeholders, such as the press and direct consumers, and achieved all the goals established in accordance with the company’s KPIs.”
5 – Add your responsibilities and functions to the position
Then, for each position, include your responsibilities, duties, and achievements. This is the penultimate step to making your resume complete for recruiters. For example, you could say that:
“As a Senior Institutional Communications Analyst, I worked directly with the area’s leaders to define communication strategies and methodologies based on the company’s business objectives. I was responsible for developing strategic plans, coordinating interns, ensuring that all of them were implemented through a structured career plan, and also for operational control of external communications, including the press, influencers and end consumers.”
6 – Repeat the process for old jobs, where you were also promoted
Finally, don’t forget that this process doesn’t just apply to your current job. It should be replicated for all other companies you’ve worked for, maintaining a standard and continuity in the document.
So, after learning all about the best way to add promotions to your resume, how about improving another part of the document? By adding a specialization to your academic background, you make your CV even more robust and complete, attracting the attention of the job market.