January 19, 2018

Use Action Words On Your Resume If You Want To Find A Job

Take a minute and think back to grade school when you learned grammar. Do you remember discussing action verbs? While you may not have thought to much about action verbs lately, they are incredibly important for every job seeker. If you want to find a job, you need to use action words on your resume.

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Action words are verbs that describe the things you do or have done. Using action words on your resume is a smart move if you want to create a high quality resume that pops. Action words will paint a picture of what you’ve accomplished while capturing a recruiter’s attention at the same time. By selecting the right words on your resume, it can help you find your next job.

Let’s take a look at how action words bring a job seeker’s responsibilities to life in the following example:

Responsibilities
- Managed a team of 7 coders
- Coded projects in C++, JavaScript, .Net
- Designed multiple websites that boosted sales by 133% in 6 months
- Wrote 3 web applications that the company uses daily with every customer

As you can see the action verbs of “managed,” “coded,” “designed,” and “wrote,” help to define exactly what the job seeker did. The word choices were positive and focused. Recruiters actively look for words like this when they skim your resume to see if you’re the right person for the job. A good rule of thumb is to use an action word by every bullet point in your resume.

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If you need some inspiration, here is a list of 75 action words that you are free to use. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find thousands of lists of action words. It’s your responsibility to pick the words that are most likely to land you the job.

When you’re writing your resume, be sure to customize it for every job listing. Find keywords from the job description and use those action words on your resume. This will help to catch a recruiter’s eye, but it can also help your resume beat ATS systems that scans for keywords. It’s little tricks like this that can help you beat the competition and land the job.