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.
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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.
Do Lead With Whats Most Important
Hiring managers skim your resume bullets, so you want to have the most important information first. Since we know that the eye scans downward, following this rule will increase your odds that these crucial details will be seen. For example:
- Oversaw commercial operations for global travel agency serving nearly 15,000 customers each year, including corporate accounts and celebrity clientele.
- Spearheaded initiative to introduce new destinations, developing partnerships with international tour operators located throughout Asia and Europe to expand revenue channels.
While both of these bullets are impressive, the first bullet provides a broader description of the individuals responsibilities and role within the organization, so it makes sense that its placed above one thats narrower in scope.
To decide how to order your bullets, ask yourself: If the hiring manager could only read two on your list, which two would you want him or her to read?
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Resume Summary Option: Use Bullets
Want the hiring manager to read the Summary section of your resume? Consider writing it in bullet points rather than a paragraph.
The bullet-form summary is not only a bit shorter than the paragraph form, it gives the reader a break by showcasing your value in easily digestible bite-sized pieces. Meanwhile, the last bullet point reveals something more specific about your success in developing training programs compared with the last sentence in the paragraph.
Writing can be a difficult task. Take it from someone who has been doing it professionally for most of his career. When youre writing your resume, trying to summarize what you have to offer an employer can be more than difficult. But the Summary section of your resume, a paragraph that goes right below your name and contact information and addresses your top qualifications for the job, is where most hiring managers decide whether to read the rest of the resume.
The Best Way To Write Your Resume Bullets
Accomplishments demonstrate your skills and experience. Its one thing to claim you can do something its another to prove youve done it.
When collecting accomplishments for a job search, consider the key areas of competency required for success in the position you are seeking. What are the key components of your job? You should be able to identify accomplishments directly related to this expertise.
To come up with accomplishments, take a look at your past performance reviews and think about any awards or recognition youve received.
The most important part of the accomplishment is outlining your results. To be most effective, however, you also need to provide context for your accomplishment. There are several different formats to do this.
Here are three common formats: STAR, CAR, and PAR.
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Resume Bullet Points Or Paragraphs: Why Not Both
Jul 19, 2019 | Resumes
If youre wondering whether to write your resume in bullet points or paragraphs, heres an answer you might not expect: both! Our writers often use both with the Hybrid-Paragraph Method, to craft great resumes. Read on to find out why and how!
By: Daniel Lorenzo | Content Marketing Manager for Lets Eat, Grandma
When starting off to write a new resume, youve probably asked yourself: Should I write my professional experiences in bullet points or paragraphs? Its a fair question.
While bullets are always preferable, there are advantages to some full-sentence descriptions on your resume. You absolutely need quantified, results-oriented bullet points to impress hiring managers, but what if theres more information you need to explain?
What if nobody knows what your company did? What if your position had a lot of duties that were hard to explain? What if the scope of your responsibilities was impressive, but you cant attach a number to every single one of them?
And yet, you cant just go and write up a book report on each job: a hiring manager still has to read it! What to do?
For an answer to this dilemma, lets turn to Americas most trusted source of information: television.
For those not in the know, this GIF is from an old commercial for Old El Paso taco shells, in which a girl settles a heated family debate over flour or corn tortillas with a simple answer:
Why not both?
Paragraphs On Your Resume: How Much Is Too Much For An Effective Resume Format
In this instance, too much of a good thing is a bad thing. If your entire resume is in paragraph form, you will bore the hiring manager, and he or she wont invest the time necessary to fully read through the text-dense material that outlines your impressive work history and your skills. If youre trying to get your dream jobor any joba boring, overwhelming first impression is a bad first impression. Its unlikely the hiring manager will call you in for an interview.
If there is a point that is so impressive it requires a longer paragraph, you may want to consider including salient details about that accomplishment or particular piece of work experience in your cover letter, which should be written in paragraph form. Though it should not be more than one page, the cover letter is an opportunity for you to highlight your most compelling achievements and work history in descriptive, but tightly written, paragraphs that will immediately make the case for your qualifications to a potential employer.
However, even if youve captured a potential employers attention with your cover letter, you need to keep their attention as they give your resume a first read, which is often a cursory read. As youre writing a resume, think about how you yourself read for important information.
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Great Resume Bullet Point Examples That Get Interviews
Now that you know the difference between listing responsibilities and listing accomplishments in your resume bullets, lets look at examples of bullet points that have gotten job seekers interviews and job offers!
Below youll find 22 bullet examples from seven different resumes, contributed by various resume writers and other career experts.
Some have more numbers and metrics than others, but they all focus on talking about what the person actually did and accomplished in their previous work.
Should Skills Be At The Top Or Bottom Of A Resume
Generally a skills section lives at the bottom of a resume. Listing your skills before your experience section will color the way your whole resume is reviewed and help tell your career story. If you work in a technical field where hard skills are paramount, you might also want to put your skills section at the top.
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Resume Writing Bullet Points
Students often tell us that writing bullets is the hardest part of a resume. When writing bullet points it is important to go beyond just your duties at a job. One way to do this is to think of the 5 Ws and an H rule you learned in school.
WHO Who did your job help? The company? Clients? Customers?
WHAT What happened with the results of the job? If you did research, was that information published? If you had to do a report what was done with that information?
WHEN When did this happen? Daily? Weekly, Monthly? Talking about how often you did something is an easy way to show productivity in your job.
WHERE Where did your duties occur? Did you have to travel for a job? Were you responsible for interacting with people outside of your organization?
WHY & HOW Why did you do this? How did your job duties help or add to the organizations ability to function.
Below is a basic formula for creating detailed bullet points. Use this formula as a starting point when writing your bullet points.
SKILL + what you DID + RESULTS/PURPOSE
Example 1: Made a documentary
Example 2A: Filmed a 10 minute documentary using the x3000 camera
Example 2B: Filmed a 10 minute documentary on AIDS awareness for a class presentation
Below are additional samples of how to add content and valuable details to your resume. The details will set you apart from other candidates and showcase your skills and expertise appropriately.
BEFORE
How To Write Resume Bullet Points
Photo by Bram Naus on Unsplash
In the section of your resume devoted to work experience, you will list the organizations you worked for, the positions you held and dates you held them, and the types of responsibilities you had at each. Because the time a hiring manager devotes to reading a resume may be less than a minute, its important to not let it get too text-heavy. For this reason, your work experience should be written in easily-skimmable bullet points. This blog post will provide helpful tips for how to write readable bullet points that successfully communicate your expertise.
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How To Write Strong Bullet Points For Your Resume
Bullet points are important for making it quickly apparent to a hiring manager that you’re qualified for a job. Because they’re easily scannable, they are usually the first place on your resume that the hiring manager looks. Reviewing samples of bullet points can help you create some that will stand out on your own resume.
In this article, we discuss why bullet points are so important and how you can use them to create a powerful resume. We also share before and after examples of bullet points at the bottom to help you craft your own.
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Should You Use Periods With Bullet Points On A Resume
Periods are not often used in bullet points on a resume. Bullet points should not be written in full or complete sentences, nullifying the need for a period. If you do write your resume using full sentences with bullet points, include periods in every section to remain consistent.
Personal pronouns such as I, me, we, etc. are not to be used on a resume. This is because you can save space by getting straight to the subject.
The reader of your resume will assume that it is you who completed the feats on the page, thus is it redundant to use such pronouns.
Even in a place where it seems a period may be needed, it is typical to omit it. Consider the differences in the following two lines:
- Collaborated on a year-long research project in Antarctica
- I collaborated with colleagues on a year-long research project in Antarctica.
In an instance where you can shorten a line to its most important details, always do so. Lets see another example of how we can summarize an accomplishment:
- CALI Award for International Law
- I achieved the CALI Excellence for the Future Award® for International Law.
Saving valuable space on a resume is one of the most important priorities when writing one.
Do not use personal pronouns, and do not use full-sentences.
How many bullet points you should use depends on the section, but most places call for 3-4 max.
If you are a very recent graduate or have no other job experience, you may choose to write in full-sentences just to fill space .
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Punctuation Tips For Your Resume
Are there specific punctuation rules for resume? you might wonder. Many job-seekers think As long as I start the sentence with a capital letter and end it with a period, theres nothing to worry about. However, this isnt always the case.
Although punctuation errors arent global deal-breakers, correct punctuation demonstrate such personality traits of an applicant as attention to detail, ability to follow complex instructions and consistency. It would be silly to miss the opportunity to show you in a better light wouldnt it? So, open the resume in a word processor and re-read it two, three or five times until youre 100% sure no punctuation errors left. Heres a guide to make this task easier for you.
How To Use Bullet Points On A Resume Effectively + How Many
Everything you need to know about resume bullet points including how to write them, how many bullet points per job, and how to maximize their effectiveness.
- 1. Resume Header
- How many bullet points per job on a resume?
- 4. Education Section
- Tips for Writing Good Resume Bullet Points
- Bullet Points or Paragraphs on a Resume: Which is Better?
- Should You Put Periods after Bullet Points on a Resume
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Resume Bullet Examples From A Senior
- Achieved over 120% of sales quota in Fiscal Year 2016
- 25% territory growth in Q4 2016 for Southern California branch
- Responsible for driving $5.8M revenue and market share in California
- Led and managed a team of 6 Account Managers, including recruiting, hiring, and training new reps on company sales process
This is a software sales executive with a lengthy career for top software firms, including Fortune 500 companies.
If you work in sales, youre going to have an easier time finding accomplishments, data and results to put on your resume.
But in any profession, you should try to have at least some of your resume bullet points looking like this! Youll notice that these bullets stand out visually because of the numbers, which boosts the chance theyll get read.
By: Biron Clark, Executive Recruiter and founder of CareerSidekick.com
Determine The Type Of Resume
Start by choosing the type of resume you will be writing. The three main types of resumes are chronological, functional and combination. Chronological resumes list your education and work experience in chronological order. Functional resumes focus on skills rather than experience. Combination resumes combine some aspects of chronological resumes and some aspects of functional resumes.
Chronological and combination resumes are great for bullet points because skills and qualifications can be placed directly under the corresponding education or experience.
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How Most People Write Bullets On Their Resume:
- Responsible for handling a high volume of inbound customer requests per day
- Managed day to day activities and long term projects for large corporate accounts
FYI, those points above are from an actual resume of mine when I was applying for jobs in a new city from very early in my career before I became a recruiter.
And that resume did NOT get interviews. It was a total failure.
The big reason why: Its not listing any accomplishments. Its just stating what I was responsible for or what my boss assigned me to do.
And thats a sure-fire way to blend in, get your resume skipped over and NOT get the interview.
So now lets look at how those two bullet point examples above should have been written with more data, and a focus on accomplishments/results
Your Work Environment Doesn’t Work With Your Personality
You might not realize it, but your work environment might be affecting your happiness. If you have an introverted personality, working in a loud, open area might be distracting and mentally exhausting for you, which can negatively impact your performance.
On the flip side, if you thrive off of collaborating and connecting with others, working in a quieter atmosphere might set back your creativity and energy.
When you’re working in an environment that consistently makes you uncomfortable, you’re unproductive. And when you’re unproductive, you’re unsatisfied. This is why it’s so important to understand your workplace personas and interaction styles and do your research on the company so you know what kind of work environment to expect. Even if you work remotely, make sure your work environment is having a positive effect on your mental health and productivity.
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