February 19, 2017

Action Verb List for An Effective Resume

Written by Rachel Eddins

Posted in Career Planning and with tags: resume

active verbs for a resume

Effective Resumes Use Action Verbs

When writing an effective resume, you want to highlight your accomplishments. Rather than your job duties, focus on what you specifically brought to the position, what made you unique. What you accomplished vs what you did.

To make your accomplishments stand out, start each bullet point with an action verb. Action verbs are a way to write your accomplishments in a concise, yet powerful way.

For example:

Selected as team lead for consistent improvement in office administration processes and improved efficiency.

Action verbs show what you can do vs. simply tell what you did. Showing your skills through concrete examples is more effective.

Quantify your accomplishments

Quantify your accomplishments, using numbers, to show specifically what results you achieved. Begin these statements with action verbs.

Here are a few examples using action verbs: 

Upgraded data management systems, improving efficiency and reducing time spent on tasks by 60%.

Renegotiated contracts saving 20% annually on fixed expenses.

Created new digital advertising campaign costing 30% less than print marketing and resulting in an increase of 50% qualified real estate buyer leads.

Digitized 10 years of company records improving accessibility and enabling remote employee workforce.

Increased sales by 26% in three months and maintained increase over 12 month period.

Organized first ever fundraising event resulting in $500,000 of revenue for our non-profit.

Implemented adoption of new company-wide software, trained over 50 employees in software use and reduced expenses by 20%.

Recruited, interviewed, trained and supervised crew of 30 volunteers to assist in marketing and customer-facing activities throughout the year.

Use a variety of action verbs

For readability, use different verbs and not the same ones over and over. And consider less common words, which will have a greater impact.

Your LinkedIn profile can also be written like a mini resume with action verbs to describe your key accomplishments.

This comprehensive list are verbs we find to be the most impactful in resume writing. Enjoy!

Download the resume action verb list here:

Verb-List-for-resume-writing

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