Resume Career Profile
Use Action Verbs, not passive voice in your Resume
A resume should be clear
A first impression with a hiring manager lasts 6 seconds. A bad first impression will put you in the same group with 98% of applicants who get dumped when resumes are compared. Only 2% will win interview, so express your experiences, skills and education as briefly and clearly as possible.
A resume should not be Passive
One of the biggest mistakes in a resume is being passive. This is defined as accepting or allowing what happens or what others do, without active response or resistance. Don’t be passive, but instead express your experiences with an active voice.
Active voice means that a subject acts on its verb. Passive voice means that a subject receives a verb’s action.
For example:
- Active: I drove my car
- Passive: My car was driven by me.
Use Action words for impact
One element of brevity and clarity is how you express your experiences, whether in bullet form or in sentences. A few things to keep in mind as you write action phrases are as follows:
- Use an action word sparingly, focus them on the most important experiences you want to highlight.
- Avoid repeating action words too many times, that will hurt its impact (reuse skill words instead)
- Don’t mince your action words, instead be transparent, objective and honest.
How to make an Action Phrase
String together short clear sentences with this formula:
- Action Words clarify accomplishments in a single word.
- A Quantifiable result can be a number, a percentage, or ratio
- A specific duty describes what you did, why, & how.

Example: I tracked 100 client orders per week with an excel spreadsheet.
A list of action words
You owned a project:
- Chaired
- Controlled
- Coordinated
- Executed
- Headed
- Operated
- Orchestrated
- Organized
- Oversaw
- Planned
- Produced
- Programmed
What you accomplished:
- Achieved
- Attained
- Awarded
- Capitalized
- Completed
- Deciphered
- Demonstrated
- Discerned
- Drove
- Earned
- Enacted
- Endeavoured
- Established
- Exceeded
- Outperformed
- Reached
- Sharpened
- Shattered
- Showcased
- Sparked
- Spearheaded
- Steered
- Stimulated
- Succeeded
- Supervised
- Surpassed
- Targeted
Cutting costs
- Conserved
- Consolidated
- Decreased
- Deducted
- Diagnosed
- Lessened
- Reconciled
- Reduced
- Yielded
How you communicate
- Collaborated
- Conveyed
- Enlivened
- Instructed
- Performed
- Presented
- Spoke
- Trained
How you create
- Authored
- Brainstormed
- Briefed
- Communicated
- Conceptualized
- Curated
- Designed
- Diagramed
- Drafted
- Edited
- Illustrated
- Imagined
- Influenced
- Intensified
- Modeled
- Proofread
- Published
- Researched
- Strategized
- Storyboarded
- Translated
- Visualized
- Wrote
How you sell
- Captured
- Conserved
- Converted
- Earned
- Generated
- Maximized
- Negotiated
- Won
You supported customers
- Advised
- Advocated
- Arbitrated
- Coached
- Consulted
- Educated
- Fielded
- Informed
- Resolved
How you manage people
- Advised
- Arranged
- Augmented
- Centralized
- Championed
- Differentiated
- Directed
- Empowered
- Endorsed
- Enforced
- Ensured
- Forecasted
- Fostered
- Identified
- Integrated
- Leveraged
- Reconciled
- Reduced
- Replaced
- Resolved
- Orchestrated
- Optimized
- Predicted
- Renovated
How you manage money
- Audited
- Classified
- Collected
- Equalized
- Dispensed
- Halted
- Investigated
- Lowered
- Maintained
- Minimized
- Recognized
- Secured
How technical you are
- Advanced
- Architected
- Automated
- Coded
- Deployed
- Detected
- Devised
- Diagnosed
- Discovered
- Formulated
- Installed
- Launched
- Networked
- Planned
- Programmed
- Rewrote
- Refined
- Tested
- Troubleshoot
- Upgraded