Creating Impressive Resume Bullets

As you draft the professional experience section of your resume, you bullet points must highlight your achievements and transferable skills and demonstrate to recruiters that you will make an impact in the role.

 Remember, a resume is not just a description of the work you have done. Your resume should be an application for the job that you want. 

Add 3 – 5 bullet points below each role (Note: as a best practice, each bullet point should typically fit on at least one full 1  line, with 2 lines being a typical max)

  • Do include skills, quantifiable accomplishments, relevant metrics met/exceeded, and any awards or accolades
  • Do ask yourself, WHAT you did on the job, HOW you did it, WHY you did it, and the IMPACT/RESULTS of your efforts.
  • Do NOT include daily job duties and tasks
  • Lead each bullet point with an action verb. Use a variety of action verbs to avoid repetition. Refer to this list as a guide.
  • Apply the STAR framework emphasizing the Action and Result when crafting bullet point

Here are some questions that you can ask to help you quantify your work and impress the recruiter:


SCALE
How many projects/initiative/ tasks/ etc. did you work? 
How many people did I collaborate with?
How many scenarios/tests did I consider/handle?
How many different methodologies did I implement?
 


RESULTS
By what percentage did I improve our old process?
How much time did I save the team or the user or the client?
How many users/groups/leaders/stakeholders used it?
How much money did I produce in value?
What percentage of our old process did I replace?
Did I improve outcomes? By how much?
Did I save any money? How much? 
Did I save any time? How much time?

Examples: 
“Presented research findings on [topic] at a national conference, attended by over 200 professionals.”

“Contributed to a research project that published a paper in the [journal name] journal, with over 100 citations.”

“Recruited and trained 20 new members for the [club/organization name], increasing overall membership by 25%.”

Strong Bullets versus Weak Bullets: 

Server, Chili’s Grill

Weak:

  • “Greeted diners at restaurant”
  • “Made customer drinks to order”
  • “Ordered important items for the business”
     

Strong:

Action Verb+ xxx (task/project/initiative), resulting in yyy (quantitative outcome- %, $, etc.)

Example: “Led a cross-functional team in optimizing the supply chain process, resulting in a x% reduction in lead times and saving $X in operational costs annually.”

Example: “Managed a team of 12 staff, ensuring 87% met or exceeded their KPIs and 100% were retained year-over-year”

Example: “Collaborated with the client product and marketing team to develop an outbound retention program, increasing the client retention by 30% and generating $20K per month in client sales. 

Example: “Transformed the customer experience by warmly greeting every dinner guest, creating a memorable impression with each guest at assigned tables, and averaging a 25% tip per transaction.”