A Big Company Name Stands Out, but Describe the Project’s Scope Accurately
One student worked on a computer vision checkout project for a major retailer. If she only wrote that she upgraded the pipeline and set up a test environment, readers would see the technical actions but might not understand why the project mattered. Explaining the client’s situation and the problem the project was solving helps employers understand the context.
But a big client doesn’t mean your project covered all its stores. At the time, this project was still a single-store pilot, and the student was responsible for data transfer and related engineering work. “Worked on a pilot project for a major retailer” and “deployed the system across the company” describe completely different scopes.
Make the company’s size, the project’s scope, and your own contribution all clear. A big client’s name can provide context, but what actually proves your ability is still what problems you solved within that scope, how you validated your work, and where the results apply.
When Costs Don’t Add Up: Ask About Scale First, Then Impact
A student told me her company’s cost allocation had a problem: costs and revenue didn’t match up. Writing only “identified cost calculation issues” tells the reader neither where the problem was nor how big it was.
I first had her explain the specific categories and how they were handled, then asked how much money was involved and what total costs were. She checked the data on the spot and said total costs the previous year were over $4 million, and about $1.9 million involved classification problems.
That’s far more specific than “costs were a bit messy.” But you still need to be careful: the $1.9 million is the amount affected by reclassification. It isn’t necessarily a loss, and it can’t be taken directly as the amount by which profit was understated or overstated.
If you want to write about the effect on profit, you need to check which accounts and periods the adjustment actually affects. The goal is to show employers what you found and why it was worth fixing, not to claim the biggest number you can find as your own achievement.
Consulting and Analysis Don’t Bring In Revenue Directly, but Your Contribution Can Still Be Shown
Another student, who worked in litigation consulting, at first could only say she built damage models and did due diligence. I kept asking: how many cases did you support, how large were they, what did your analysis change, and was the result an estimated amount or an actual settlement?
In one of her experiences, the damages figure we discussed in class went from about $15 million to more than $30 million. When I asked why it increased, she first said only that an assumption had been wrong. As she kept talking, it became clear: the loss period had been calculated incorrectly, and the evidence she found supported extending it by 60 days.
The dollar amount shows the scale. Your reasoning shows what you can do. Both are worth talking about. A result of more than $30 million is striking, but if you can’t explain which step of your analysis changed the calculation, the interviewer still can’t judge your contribution.
She also mentioned supporting more than 35 cases in total, involving over $80 million. Totals like that establish the scope of your work; in an interview, pick the one or two cases that best show your judgment and go into those. When a result was the team’s, be clear about your part in it. You don’t need to take credit for the whole amount.
Similarly, VBA and automation work can be quantified. Ask how long a task used to take, how long it takes now, how many times the tool has been used, and how many people benefit. If you can verify the hours saved, write the hours first. Converting that into dollars also means pinning down the rate and how many times it was reused. A client billing rate and the company’s actual labor cost aren’t the same thing, and you can’t lump both together as “saved the company X dollars.”
Lots of Scattered Experience: Find What’s Relevant, Then Decide How Much Space Each Gets
One student had done e-commerce, venture capital (VC) matchmaking, and other projects, but kept calling all of it “random grunt work.” If her resume had followed her own assessment, the most valuable parts would have been buried.
I started by listening to her tell the whole thing, then looked at how each experience connected to the target role. For choosing products for an e-commerce store, I looked at whether it showed how she used information and data to make decisions; for connecting companies with resources, whether it showed what problems she helped them solve.
At first she said she was just a coordinator. When I kept asking, she described helping companies secure lower rent for their space, recruiting five or six R&D staff, and organizing five investor meetings. All of that is more specific than “responsible for communication and coordination.”
In terms of writing, expand the most relevant experiences and compress minor ones into a single line. Don’t give everything equal space, and don’t write off an experience just because it came from a startup, a small company, or a side project.
I often tell students like this: claim your credit. Whatever analysis, coordination, or pushing you did, say so. If you’re so modest that all that’s left is “I helped out a bit,” nobody else can fill in the rest for you.
No Relevant Background, but You Got It Done: That Shows You Can Learn
A student who had worked in real estate operations felt her background was weak because she hadn’t trained in the field and had taught herself much of it in a short time. But she had actually helped improve operations and had results to show for it.
I asked her to look at the experience from another angle: she didn’t know the field at first, then learned it, applied it, and at some point started making judgments on her own. That’s exactly what shows the ability to get into a new field.
She had also organized a basketball tournament, something she knew little about beforehand. The same went for that. She could explain how she picked up the rules and logistics, how she coordinated things on site, and how she dealt with problems. You don’t need to pretend you knew everything from the start. Describing how you learned enough to take responsibility is valuable in itself.
In class I sometimes say, “You’re already doing manager-level work, and you still see yourself as someone doing grunt work.” That’s to get students to notice the responsibility they carry. It isn’t a license to change your official title on your own.
When Your Boss Set the Direction, Still Explain Your Own Analysis and Execution
Another common situation is when the student opens with “My boss told me to do it,” and everything after that turns into passively completing a task.
For example, one student helped evaluate a plan to furnish rental apartments. The boss came up with the idea, but she took part in the market research, comparing listings, understanding what student tenants needed, and using the analysis to persuade the landlord.
All of that is worth talking about. State the assignment you were given, then put the emphasis on what information you compared, what you found, and how it supported the decisions that followed. There’s no need to spend a lot of space on how your boss assigned it, or to hand all the credit to your boss.
At the same time, keep the distinction between “came up with the original idea” and “analyzed and tested the plan.” Your resume can focus on your research and the way you moved things forward, but you can’t turn someone else’s original proposal into your own just to sound more proactive. I go further into where the line is for this kind of wording in the Appendix.
When You Don’t Know What to Write, or Don’t Have the Numbers
First, dig up the materials: the reports, code, project descriptions, and your own work notes from the time, or ask colleagues and managers who can help you remember. Don’t just stare at one line on your resume and try to think. Many details only come back when you return to the original materials.
For school projects, ask your teammates and find what you produced together. For internships, ask how your work ended up being used and what came of it. Asking other people is more effective than guessing a nice-looking number yourself.
If you realize you never knew why your tasks mattered, you can change that starting with your next internship. When you get an assignment, ask: “What decision is this supporting, and what happens after it’s done?” Understanding the bigger picture will help you both do the work and write your resume.
Once you’ve written it, have the career center, a professor, older students, or people in the field look at it, but give them the specific role and your specific questions. When you use AI to polish it, check line by line that it hasn’t added responsibilities, methods, or results on its own. The value of professional editing lies less in a nice-looking final product than in learning to judge and revise things yourself from then on.