Strategy Résumé: Showing Impact From Decisions You Didn't Make Alone

Three versions of the same year

Here are three résumé lines for the same piece of work. All three are invented.

• “Responsible for market analysis supporting Asia-Pacific expansion.”
• “Drove $40M revenue growth through Asia-Pacific expansion strategy.”
• “Built the market-entry case that led the executive team to enter two Asia-Pacific markets instead of five; first-year revenue in both beat plan.”

The first describes a desk. The second claims a company's result as a personal one, and the first interview question (“what exactly did you do?”) will take it apart. The third names a decision, the writer's part in it and what followed. It is the only one a reader can believe and an interviewer can explore.

The short answer. A strategy résumé line works when it says which decision the work fed, what you specifically did, and what happened next, with a number where you can source one. Strategy work ends in someone else's decision, so the honest unit of achievement is the decision you moved, described with a verb that matches your share.

Claim the decision you moved, not the outcome you watched.

Why strategy work is hard to put on a page

A salesperson can write a quota. An engineer can name what shipped. A strategist's output is usually a recommendation, a model or a meeting, and the result belongs to the executives who decided and the teams who carried it out. Three problems follow.

• Attribution. The revenue, the savings and the share gain were produced by many people. Claim all of it and you overclaim; claim none and you describe a job, not an achievement.
• Confidentiality. Client names, deal values and internal targets may be things you are not free to publish. Check your employment agreement and your firm's policy before you write.
• Lag. Strategy decisions pay off, or fail, after you have moved on. The result you can honestly report may only be the decision itself and its first signs.

General résumé advice still applies. Harvard's career office tells students to tailor a résumé to the position, to write in active rather than passive language, and to make it fact-based, quantifying and qualifying what was done ¹. For strategy work, the question is what to quantify when the result is shared.

The anatomy of a strategy line

Five parts. You will rarely use all five in one line, but you should be able to say all five out loud.

The first and fourth parts are the ones most strategy résumés leave out. Without the decision, the line describes analysis. Without what followed, it describes a recommendation that may have gone nowhere, and interviewers know how often that happens.

The template

The line builder below drafts one decision line at a time and checks it for the usual mistakes. Draft three, keep the best two.

A filled-in example

The person, companies and numbers below are invented. Notice that the rewrites get shorter in claims and longer in specifics.

Each sentence names a decision and a consequence. None claims the company's revenue. An interviewer can pick any line and ask for ten minutes on it, and the writer can give them.

Verbs that match your share

The verb is where most overclaiming happens. Match it to what you would describe if asked, and an interviewer's follow-up becomes an invitation instead of a trap.

“Drove,” “spearheaded” and “transformed” are the verbs we would cut first. They claim ownership without saying what you did. “Helped,” “supported” and “was responsible for” fail the other way: they describe presence, not contribution.

Numbers you can defend

• Every number has a source you could name. A board paper, a published report, a plan you wrote. If you cannot say where it came from, cut it.
• Size the decision, not your contribution. “A $30M reallocation” describes the decision's scale; it does not claim you produced $30M.
• Give a baseline when a percentage would mislead. “Priorities cut from 11 to 4” says more than “67% fewer priorities.”
• Use ranges or shares when exact figures are confidential. “A business representing about a seventh of revenue” protects the figure and keeps the scale.
• Never add precision you do not have. A rounded true number beats an exact invented one, and interviewers notice precision that sounds made up.

The case for bigger claims

The strongest objection to this page is practical. Résumés are screened quickly, often by people or software looking for large numbers and strong verbs. A careful line that says “built the case” may lose to a confident one that says “drove $40M,” and the careful writer never gets the interview where honesty would have paid.

We take that seriously, and we do not have hiring data to settle it. Our judgment as practitioners is that the trade is not between honesty and impact. A line can carry a large number, the scale of the decision, and an honest verb at the same time. “Built the exit case behind a $30M reallocation” has the number the screen looks for and survives the interview. The overclaim wins a screen and then has to survive ten minutes with a hiring manager who has written the same kind of line, and in strategy roles that person is usually the one deciding.

For senior strategists the problem changes shape. A head of strategy is hired for a pattern of decisions, not one line. Lead with two or three decisions that show range, such as a portfolio choice, a planning redesign and a stopped initiative, and let the rest of the résumé show how often that pattern repeated.

If you are moving from consulting to an in-house role, see our page on leaving consulting: in-house interviewers look hardest for evidence that you have lived with a decision after recommending it.

Before you send it

• Every line names a decision, not only a deliverable.
• Every verb matches your real share of the work.
• Every number has a source you could name in the interview.
• No line claims a company result as a personal one.
• Client and employer details are ones you are free to share.
• The summary names the kind of decisions you work on.
• The résumé is tailored to the role's decisions, not sent unchanged.

Monday morning: take your current résumé and, next to each line, write the decision it fed. Any line where you cannot is a description of a job. Rewrite it or cut it.

A strategy résumé is itself a piece of strategy writing. It makes a claim, backs it with evidence and invites a skeptic to test it. Write it so the test is the part of the interview you are looking forward to.

Questions

How do you show strategy impact on a résumé?

Name the decision your work fed, what you specifically did and what followed, with a number you can source. Strategy work ends in someone else's decision, so the honest unit of achievement is the decision you moved. Use a verb that matches your share, such as built the case or ran the decision process, rather than claiming the company's result.

Should a strategy resume include revenue numbers?

Include numbers that size the decision, such as the budget reallocated or the share of revenue in scope, and that you could source in an interview. Avoid presenting a company result, such as revenue growth, as if you produced it alone. A large number paired with an honest verb survives both a quick screen and a skeptical interviewer.

How do consultants describe client work on a résumé?

Describe clients by industry, size and region unless you know you are free to name them, and check your employment agreement and firm policy first. Lead with the decision the client made and your part in it, and include any implementation work, because in-house interviewers look for evidence that you have lived with a decision.

What verbs should a strategy resume avoid?

In our judgment, cut verbs that claim ownership without saying what you did, such as drove, spearheaded and transformed, and verbs that describe presence rather than contribution, such as helped, supported and was responsible for. Prefer verbs that match your real share: decided or ran if you owned it, led the analysis or built the case if you informed it.

Where to go next

• Leaving Consulting for a Corporate Strategy Role
• The Strategy Manager Role: The Work, the Skills, the Path
• What Strategists Earn: What the Public Data Can and Can't Say
• Career Development Strategy
• The One-Page Decision Memo (free PDF)