How To Write Excellent Resume Bullet Points
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Resumes are a key component of a job application package. As a job applicant, it is helpful to include thoughtful and impactful skills and qualifications in your resume through bullet points. Well-written bullet points improve your chances of getting an interview and a job. In this article, we discuss the importance of good resume bullet points and how to write them, with examples and tips.
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How To Make Bullet Points In Microsoft Word
It is very easy to create a bulleted list in Microsoft Word or any other word processing applications:
Step 1: Highlight the sentences/items that you wish to make into a list.
Step 2: Click on the bullets option in the user interface:
Step 3: You can select a different bullet format by clicking on the small arrow to the right of the bullet options .
Add Numbers To Your Resume Bullet Points
When talking about work achievements and results, make sure to be as specific as you can be and include measurable data numbers. When talking about your sales accomplishments, say by how much you were able to increase company revenue. When explaining your work as a social media manager, include improvements in conversion rates and so on.
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Is It Important To Put Periods After Bullet Points In Resume
It is completely on your preference as some people put periods after every bullet point in resume and some do not. However, the fundamental rule is that you have to put a period after bullet points in resume if you have written a complete sentence.
Still, we suggest you be consistent with your action. Putting periods after some bullet points in resume leaving another points without a period will make it look messy.
When To Use Bullet Points On A Resume
Bullets allow you to highlight your most relevant accomplishments and separate your job duties, skills, and achievements as separate pointsbut they’re not appropriate for every type of resume. There are three main types of resumes:
- Chronological resumes, the most common of the three varieties, list your work experiences in reverse chronological order and provide concise summaries of each role.
- Functional resumes emphasize skills and achievements in a non-linear format, so they are often more verbose than chronological resumes.
- Combination resumes are usually divided into two sections: one that focuses on skills and achievements and another that details work experiences in reverse chronological order.
As bulleted list items serve as concise nuggets of information, they’re best suited for chronological resumes and the work history section of a combination resume. While bullet points aren’t forbidden in functional resumes, they’re less suitable because these resumes are often compiled in paragraph form to de-emphasize potential gaps in work history.
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How Many Bullet Points Per Job On Resume
HomeBlogResume TipsHow Many Bullet Points Per Job On Resume?
In addition, effective bullet points with a strong action verb are essential in the work experience section, the skills section, and the resume
How many bullet points should you put under each job on your resume ?
In most cases, 3-4 bullet points will do the trick. Include and strong action verb and quantifiable result to make the most of each bullet.
Because were often asked, How many bullet points per job should I put on my resume ? we reached out to career counselors, HR experts, and leading resume writers for their advice. Utilizing bullet points under the job title or skills section is crucial when creating an effective to launch your job search.
Post Contents
Why Is It Important To Write Good Resume Bullet Points
Good resume bullet points will grab the attention of the hiring manager reading your resume. Hiring managers often review resumes in a matter of seconds, so the better the bullet points, the more likely the hiring manager is to notice your resume among many others.
Another benefit of strong bullet points is the information they convey. Great bullet points should be straightforward and clear so that the hiring manager can immediately see the value you will bring to their company.
Finally, excellent bullet points should reference a specific skill or accomplishment related to the position for which you are applying. Use the limited space on a resume to your advantage by clearly demonstrating how your previous experience and current skills align directly with the position.
Related:
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Bullet Points For Your Resume Skills Section
Your resume introduction and experience section arent the only sections of your resume where you can use bullet points
Depending on the resume template you choose, your skills section might also include bullet points.
Listing skills in the form of bullet points is a straightforward process. Like with bullet points in your experience section, they dont need to be complete sentences. A skills section written in bullet point format should look like this:
Write down one skill for each bullet point to prevent your resume from looking cluttered.
Resume Bullet Point Examples From A Workplace Safety And Organizational Compliance Professional:
- Successfully reduced workers compensation injuries from 20 to 2 in a one-year period through the introduction of a comprehensive employee incentive program.
- Brought organization back into federal compliance by establishing an organization-wide Leave of Absence process.
- Received corporate-wide Employee of the Year Award and multiple Employee of the Month Awards .
This resume quickly earned the candidate an interview, followed by a job offer, as a result of effectively communicating both their responsibilities and associated accomplishments.
Instead of focusing on what they do day-to-day , they highlight the end goal of their efforts . They then wrap it up with a final bullet that further backs up their accomplishments.
By: Kyle Elliott, MPA, CHES, Career Coach at CaffeinatedKyle.com
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Make Sure Theyre Optimized
The first step in most applications is getting past Applicant Tracking Systems , so make sure your bullet points include relevant skills and keywords for the job youre applying for. Once youre finished, use Score My Resume to check that theyre optimized. This free tool scores your resume on key criteria recruiters and hiring managers look for and gives you actionable feedback to revamp your resume and land more interviews. Struggling to get started? This bullet point builder tool can help you format your accomplishments from the ground up.
If you want to find skills and keywords relevant to the job youre applying for, use the skills search tool below to find the right ones.
Your Bullet Points Should Start With Action Verbs
Action verbs describe what you did in a specific role. Starting every bullet point with an action verb, like trained new employee, when describing your achievements in a previous position is essential. A variety of exciting verbs and not repeat a single verb throughout the bullet points. Use verbs that show your involvement in the role and explain how your actions helped the company grow. As youll note in the bullet point examples below, bullets do not need to be complete sentences.
Jennifer Hill, the author of the book Stop Hoping, Start Hunting, a Job Seekers Guide to Finding a Dream Job, added the following about using action verbs:
It is essential to begin each bullet with an action verb and follow up with how you increased Productivity, Efficiency, or Performance or what I call PEP.
The resume -building and executive consulting website founder also added some insight to this point and even gave some examples:
You should try to maximize your content within 3-6 bullet points and concisely communicate your responsibilities and tasks during the previous jobs. I would suggest beginning your sentence by using an action word to describe your impact and then mentioning how you achieved this goal.
Moreover, ensure each bullet point is just one line, and you have used numbers to show how significant the impact was.
Heres an example of what a job in the resume
UNILEVER LIMITED, Human Resource Intern
Project: Developing a Year to Date recruitment dashboard.
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Resumes With Impact: Creating Strong Bullet Points
How can you make your resume stand out to an employer?
- Use an easy-to-read format and structure that highlights your relevant education and experience.
- Develop bullet points or statements to show relevant skills and qualities. Be specific about what you did and how you did it.
- Start your bullet points or statements with strong action verbs.
- Provide contextual details to inform the reader about the purpose of your work, the scope of the project, and what you produced or accomplished.
- Quantify your work and achievements where possible.
Tips For Writing Effective Resume Bullet Points
Keep these guidelines in mind as you boil down your duties, achievements, and skills:
- Craft bullet points tailored to the job. Select duties or achievements that match the qualifications for the job. Then, include two to four bullet points for each job or educational or volunteering experience you list. Avoid repeating yourself by restating the same responsibilities in different variations. List the items that are the most relevant to the job you want before items that are less consequential.
- Keep it simple. By virtue of their format, bullet points on a resume demand brevity. Each one should include a concise phrase or sentence.
- Use impactful language. Use vivid action verbs over mundane ones whenever possible to give the reader a more realistic sense of what you did.
- Skip the periods. Remember: Bullet points are often fragments rather than complete sentences. But if you choose to use a period for one phrase, use one for every bullet to maintain consistency and make your resume look more uniform and professional.
- Use a conventional bullet style, such as circles, hyphens, or small squares. Avoid other symbols that might look too confusing or might render incorrectly on a recipient’s device. Style issues make it hard to evaluate the substance of your resume.
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With A Bullet: How Many Bullet Points Per Job Should You Include On Your Resume
If you want your resume to stand out, the key is to emphasize your accomplishments with 4-6 bullet points per role. Here’s why and the exceptions you need to know.
a year ago 10 min read
Heres something you might not know: Your resume doesnt actually need to include everything youve ever done. That fast food job you worked twenty years ago? The nightmare job you ditched after two months? The dozens of really impressive accomplishments at your last job that have absolutely nothing to do with the job youre applying for now? None of these need to stay on your resume.
Instead of a comprehensive rundown of everything youve ever done professionally, your resume only needs to outline the experience, skills, and achievements that recruiters are looking for in this particular job. How do you do that? Through your bullet points, of course! Your work experience accomplishments are the backbone of your resume and the thing that hiring managers care about the most.
Why Youre The Best Candidate
Using stories rather than fragmented lists of bullet points to craft your résumé and profile involves closely examining what makes you an exceptional candidate. The focus of this examination is on not just what you did but how you improved an organization, both overall and in specific ways.
Of course, this wont guarantee youll get the job, but it should get you more interviews and more opportunities to tell your stories, tailoring them to what each hiring company needs.
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When To Avoid Bullet Points
8. CV
If youâre writing a long resume or curriculum vitae, content must be lengthy and elaborate without division such as in a resume with bulleted points. It is not uncommon for candidates to use bullet points in the resume to exemplify their candidacy.
9. Academic Resume
Often sent in CV format, academic resumes contain long walls of text for all-inclusive comprehension and proof of the scholarly work.
10. Application says so
If your job application specifically restricts the use of bullet points, restrain from inserting them in any part of the resume.
How Many Bullet Points Per Job On A Resume Is Enough
When writing a resume, one of your main goals is to communicate with clarity.
Even if skimming, the reader should clearly understand your main areas of expertise and competitive strengths as a job candidate.
The best way to format your resume for readability is by using bullet points, especially for the work history section. Bullet points add structure to your writing and make it easier for the reader to find the information they need.
But the big question is: how many bullet points per job should you put? Especially, when you need to make a one-page resume. Heres our take!
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Do You Put Periods After Bullet Points On A Resume
No, you dont put periods after bullet points on a resume because resume bullet points arent typically written as complete sentences.
However, if you do use complete sentences on your resume, you should add periods.
Here are two examples that illustrate this point:
Doesn’t use a period
Manage business development and domestic sales initiatives totaling $10M per year
Uses a period
My duties include managing business development and domestic sales initiatives totaling $10M per year.
The first example is a fragment of a sentence and doesnt need a period, while the second example is a complete sentence, so it needs a period at the end.
Whether you choose to write in full sentences or not is up to you. The important thing to remember is that when it comes to periods, consistency is key.
If the first bullet point of your experience section is a complete sentence with a period at the end, the rest of them should be written the same way.
+ Bullet Point Samples
Write your resume in half the time with twice the impact. Successful job applicants have already spent hours crafting the perfect resume lines that got them interviews at top-tier companies. Sign up and upgrade to access hundreds of curated sample resume bullet points that you can use as inspiration. Simply find a line similar to your own experiences, tweak it, and copy it into your resume.
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How To Use Bullet Points In A Resume
As employers generally have hundreds of resumes to look through they only spend seconds scanning through each one. Employers dont want to wade through long paragraphs so using resume bullet points is an effective way of getting to the point and getting noticed.
Should a resume have bullet points? Yes, using bullet points on a resume clearly and concisely highlights your strengths. You can showcase your most relevant accomplishments and you most important skills and qualifications without burying them in chunks of text.
The resume bullet points you include should differ for each job application according to the job requirements. Using a resume creator allows you to make quick edits for each application, allowing you to tailor your resume.
Success Verbs For Your Resume
When talking about your experience, you will need to use quite a few verbs. Using words like worked, did or was responsible for is absolutely fine, but it can get quite repetitive and boring. If you want to make your resume more interesting to read, consider adding a few more action verbs to your vocabulary.
Action verbs, as the name suggests, are verbs that express action. You can use these verbs to describe your skills, work experience, accomplishments and more. Using powerful verbs is another way to better highlight your credentials and keep your application effective and concise.
Here are just a few examples of interesting action verbs.
Action verbs to talk about your responsibilities
Accomplish: accomplished all assigned sales goals
Assemble:assembled a team of creative professionals
Forge:forged new relationships with partners
Build: built a solid client base
Coordinate: coordinated the development of key projects
Expand: expanded company portfolio
Guide:guided my team through department overhaul
Deliver:delivered top sales numbers
Volunteer: volunteered to train new employees
Some other verbs fit for this section: analyze, accelerate, chart, create, construct, develop, execute, finalize, handle, head, initiate, increase, produce, organize and others.
Action verbs to highlight your accomplishments
Attain:attained all project goals
Consolidate:consolidated business activities at a new branch
Exceed:exceeded set sales goals
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Where To Include Bullets
Although bullet points can be used in any resume format, they are most effective for chronological or combination resumes. Meanwhile, a functional resume that includes longer paragraphs, theyre not as effective. In general, the most appropriate sections for bullet points are:
- Work experience Under the job heading of each position youve held in the past, explain your duties and accomplishments in bullet points. To choose only the most relevant experience, review the job listing and pick achievements that match the job.
- Summary of Qualifications If you include a qualifications summary at the top of your resume, list your relevant qualifications as bullets. Choose only those that align with the job posting and make a shortlist under the section heading.
- Skills Whichever skills you possess that align with the job, use bullet points to list them. Also, remember to include relevant soft skills, like communication or adaptability.
- Education Much like with your work history, you can use resume bullet points to present your education. That is, under the heading of your educational level, list any awards or accomplishments you have earned.
- Volunteer experience If its relevant to the position, you may include your volunteer experience in your resume. Group all your volunteer duties and achievements under one section heading, focusing on those that most align with the job.