The honest answer is four to six duties for your most recent role, two or three for older ones, and fewer than you probably want to include. This page explains why that number works, how to decide which duties survive the cut, and what to do when you feel you have too few or too many.
The Short Answer
- Most recent role: four to six duty bullets.
- Previous role: three to four.
- Roles from more than about five years ago: two or three.
- Roles from more than ten years ago: job title, employer and dates only.
- Total across the CV: rarely more than fifteen to eighteen bullets.
These are guidelines rather than rules, but the direction is almost always toward fewer. Very few CVs are rejected for being too concise.
Why Fewer Works Better
Nobody Reads a Long List
A recruiter scanning applications reads the first two or three bullets of your most recent role properly and skims the rest. A twelve-bullet list does not get twelve bullets of attention; it gets the same attention spread thinner, with your best material buried among routine tasks.
Weak Bullets Drag Down Strong Ones
If four bullets carry numbers and outcomes and eight are generic filler, the reader’s impression is formed by the average rather than the best. Removing the filler raises the perceived quality of everything that remains, which is why cutting frequently improves a CV more than adding does.
Selection Is Itself a Signal
Choosing the four duties most relevant to the advertised role demonstrates judgment about what matters. Listing everything you ever did demonstrates only that you did it.
How to Decide Which Duties Survive
Work through this in order and stop when you have six.
- Anything the advert explicitly asks for, if you have genuinely done it.
- Anything carrying a number, such as volume, headcount or accuracy.
- Anything with an outcome, where something changed because of you.
- Anything naming a system, certification or specialised environment.
- Anything showing responsibility beyond your job title, such as training others.
- Anything unusual for the role, which distinguishes you from other applicants.
What falls away is the routine task any holder of that job title obviously performed. A cashier does not need a bullet stating that they operated a till, and an administrator does not need one stating that they used a computer.
When You Think You Have Too Few
Most people who feel they have too few duties actually have too few details. The fix is usually to expand what you have rather than to find more.
- Add scope to bullets you already have: how many, how often, how large.
- Split a broad bullet into two specific ones where they are genuinely distinct.
- Add the systems you used, which most people omit.
- Include work you dismissed as unofficial, such as training a new colleague or covering for a supervisor.
- Add an outcome to a duty where you improved something.
If after that you genuinely have three solid bullets, use three. Three specific bullets beat six padded ones every time.
When You Have Too Many
This is the more common problem, particularly for people who have held one role for a long time and want to convey everything it involved.
- Cut anything a reader would assume from the job title.
- Merge closely related bullets into one that covers both.
- Move anything not relevant to the advert into a shorter earlier-roles section.
- Cut duplicated duties that appear under several employers, keeping the strongest instance.
- Move technical capabilities into your skills block rather than repeating them as duties.
Keep the cut material in a master version of your CV so you can restore a bullet when a different advert calls for it.
The Master CV Approach
Keep one long document listing everything you have done, and never send it. For each application, copy it and cut down to the four to six bullets that match the advert. This takes about ten minutes and produces a far better result than sending the same CV everywhere.
It also solves the problem of how many duties to list, because the answer becomes as many as are relevant to this specific job, which is the correct answer in every case.
Bullets Versus Paragraphs
Use bullets. A paragraph of duties is harder to scan, and a recruiter reading fifty applications will absorb less of it. Keep each bullet to one or two lines, since a bullet running to four lines is a paragraph wearing a dot.
Related Pages
For how to write each bullet once you have chosen them, see How to Write Duties on a CV.
FAQs
How many duties should I list on my CV?
Four to six for your most recent role, three to four for the previous one, and two or three for older positions. Roles from more than ten years ago need only the title, employer and dates. Across the whole CV, rarely more than fifteen to eighteen bullets.
Is it bad to have only three duties for a job?
No, provided they are specific. Three bullets carrying scope, systems or outcomes are stronger than six padded with routine tasks. The reader forms an impression from the average quality, so removing weak bullets improves the strong ones.
What should I cut first?
Anything a reader would assume from the job title, such as a cashier operating a till. Then duplicated duties appearing under several employers, then anything irrelevant to the advert you are answering.
Should I list duties for jobs from fifteen years ago?
Generally no. Give the title, employer and dates, or group several older roles under a single earlier career heading. Detailed bullets about a job you left fifteen years ago take space from the experience that will actually be assessed.
Should I use bullets or a paragraph?
Bullets, kept to one or two lines each. Paragraphs are harder to scan and a recruiter reading many applications absorbs less of them. A bullet running to four lines has become a paragraph and should be split or cut.