How to Show a Promotion on a CV (with Examples)

When you’re writing a CV, showing a promotion can help you stand out by showing your employer recognised your performance, trusted you with greater responsibility, and saw long-term potential in your ambition, ability to learn, and potential for career growth.

However, the right way to list a promotion on your CV depends on your specific situation and the type of promotion you received.

Here are three effective ways to put a promotion on your CV:

1. Stacked entries (most common and clearest)

Stacking means listing your different job titles under the same company in your work experience section:

CV Genius, Bognor Regis
Marketing Manager, May 20XX–Present

• Promoted from Senior Marketing Specialist to Marketing Manager based on exceptional track record
• Led a team of marketing professionals in developing and implementing comprehensive marketing campaigns across multiple channels
• Developed and executed strategic marketing plans

Senior Marketing Specialist, July 20XX–May 20XX

• Conducted in-depth market research and customer analysis to identify target audiences
• Collaborated with cross-functional teams, including product development, sales, and creative departments
• Created weekly blog posts, applying SEO strategies that produced a 30% increase in organic traffic

Under the company’s name and location, write your job titles and the dates you held them, starting with the most recent and working backwards. Then write a few bullet points that highlight your main achievements in each role.

Listing two job titles under the same company is a good idea if:

• your promotion resulted in significant changes to what you do at work
• your promotion led you into a management or supervisory role
• the titles reflect clear career progression recruiters will want to see
• your work status was formalised (for example, you had originally onboarded as an unpaid intern or on a temporary contract)

You can also use this method for lateral moves at the same company, (i.e. changes in job title or responsibilities that were not technically promotions) such as a transfer from marketing to product management.

2. Single entry (that clearly shows the promotion)

Instead of stacking two jobs separately under the same company name, you can also list both job titles right under each other like this:

CV Genius, Bognor Regis
Senior Career Counsellor, August 20XX–Present
Career Counsellor, January 20XX–August 20XX

• Promoted after showing excellent ability to help job seekers find work
• Provide career guidance to over 200 job seekers annually
• Develop tailored career action plans using skills and interests assessments such as Talent Match and Morrisby

This is a good idea if you:

• were promoted into a new role with essentially the same duties
• want to show progression without repeating identical bullet points
• are in a company where title changes are common or frequent (for example, annual changes)

This applies if you were promoted — e.g., from Content Writer to Senior Content Writer — at a company where title changes reflect seniority or pay, not duties.

In these situations, making separate bullet points under each job title would be redundant. Repetition wastes space and makes it harder for recruiters to spot your most relevant achievements on your CV.

List the most recent title above the previous one, along with the dates you held each of them. Then, write a bullet to explain your promotion as well as other bullet points detailing your achievements across both roles.

You could also use an arrow to show progression like this:

CV Genius, Bognor Regis
Career Counsellor → Senior Career Counsellor, January 20XX–Present

3. Separate entries

If a former employer invited you back for a more senior position, here’s how to list both roles on your CV while clearly showing the most recent was a promotion:

CV Genius, Bognor Regis
Director of Marketing, August 20XX–Present

• Lead the strategic direction of multichannel marketing campaigns
• Oversee a cross-functional team of 23 across content, SEO, and paid media
• Represent the company in industry events and partnerships

National Careers Service (GOV.UK), Coventry
Deputy Head of Marketing Strategy, April 20XX–August 20XX

• Directed national outreach campaigns promoting adult skills training
• Managed external agencies and internal stakeholders to ensure consistent, user-focused messaging across GOV.UK platforms
• Implemented data-driven evaluation frameworks to measure campaign effectiveness and inform future strategy

CV Genius, Bognor Regis
Content Manager, November 20XX–April 20XX

• Led content development for the UK’s premier CV and careers advice platform
• Supervised a team of 4 writers and editors, ensuring content met SEO, brand, and editorial standards
• Collaborated with the product team to launch new tools and resources
  

Creating separate work experience entries for each job title is the simplest option in this case, since it shows career progression in a straightforward way.

Tips for highlighting promotions on your CV

Here are a few tips on how to write a CV that effectively emphasises your promotions:

• Explain your promotion in your first experience bullet: For example, ‘Promoted to second in department for consistently achieving top pupil outcomes and leading curriculum development initiatives across the department.’
• Format your CV to make your promotion stand out. Using bold, italics, underlining, font sizes, and spacing strategically can make your promotions more visible to employers scanning your CV.
• Emphasise your leadership skills if you were promoted to manager or supervisor. Using leadership-oriented action verbs like ‘Led‘, ‘Managed‘, ‘Captained‘, ‘Headed‘, or ‘Steered‘ shows you didn’t just receive the promotion, you rose to the challenge and delivered results in a more senior role.

Things to avoid

And here are two things to avoid doing if you want employers to notice your promotion:

1. Avoid using company-specific jargon to explain your promotions, like ‘Regraded from Pay Scale 4 to Pay Scale 6’ — people at other companies won’t understand these references.
2. Avoid repeating the same bullet points if you’ve listed separate work history entries for each promotion. Repeating bullet points or rewording the same achievements will make it look like your promotion was only a job title change with no actual growth.

Easily describe your promotion on your CV

Our online CV maker harnesses the power of AI to suggest bullet points that accurately reflect your new duties and accomplishments after promotions. So if you’re struggling to put your progression into words or highlight your impact clearly, consider getting help from an online tool.

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