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Resume bullet points
Yeah, they are crazy important.
If you are reading this, then the chances are that you in the process of writing your resume to apply for a job, or maybe you already have crafted a resume probably from a free resume template you googled and are struggling to get any interviews. Well, strap in because I am about to hit you with a truth bomb: The reason that you are not getting any call backs for a job interview is because your resume bullet points are not good.
I am sorry, but before we go any further, I want us to be honest with each other. I want to help. My goal in this article is to help you create a resume that will get you job offers. And to do that I need to address how you create a professional resume that will stand out from the rest. More specifically, how you craft the perfect bullet points that will dazzle and delight every hiring manager that reads them.
Why do you need clear-cut bullet points?
You see, just like you, there are millions of other people who are looking for a job, or at a minimum, looking to improve their resume in order to improve their chances of landing their dream job. And the gateway to getting that dream job is your resume.
Think about it for a second; there is probably a poor human resources professional out there who has a pile of 65 resumes stacked on her desk, and your resume is in there somewhere. By the time that human resources professional gets to your resume, she will be tired and drained. If your resume doesn’t impress at first glance or stand out enough to make her notice it, you simply will not get a interviewed for that job.
Okay, now we have a clear picture of what we are dealing with. Let’s get to the heart of the matter: resume bullet points. (If you are interested in crafting your cover letter instead, start with my article on understanding the purpose of your cover letter.) This is such an important topic because your bullet points can completely make or break your resume. They are more important than you might imagine them to be.
In order to get the attention of that poor recruiter, your resume needs to make a strong first impression at first glance. You have to understand that most human resource professionals are just skimming through your resume. They most likely have already looked at something such as your LinkedIn profile. Which means the best way to showcase your talents and experience to that uninterested person who is going to get you the job interview is to have succinct, bold, and impressive bullet points.
Why do resume bullet points matter?
Isn't it ironic that bullet points are often the last thing that we put attention and effort into when crafting our resumes. There is no shortage of websites devoted “beautiful looking resumes” or “custom designed resumes sure to catch the eye of a recruiter.” But there are not many web sites that focus on resumes that flow well and the content to demonstrate your experience. After all, that is one of the reasons I started preparedresume.com.
Therefore, resume bullet points are not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when we imagine a great resume, right? Even though bullet points are often an afterthought, they are the most important thing on your resume. Forget about your job titles and the companies that you have worked for previously. Impactful and strong bullet points are the thing that you are going to get you that job. So, how can you craft the perfect bullet points? That’s what we are going to talk about next.
The Art and Science of Crafting Bullet Points
Remember the basics of creating a resume. Ask yourself, “What is the purpose of my resume?” Is it to tell the person reading it your responsibilities in your previous jobs and how great you were at fulfilling them. A great resume highlights your accomplishments above all else. Your job title tells the reader about your responsibilities. Your bullet points tell them about your accomplishments. The art of crafting the perfect bullet points starts with a formula that is empirically going to make your bullet points better and make them pop.
The Four-Part Bullet Point Formula
This very simply resume bullet point formula is how to craft the perfect bullet points. Every single one of your bullet points needs to have four crucial parts:
- Active Verb
- Your Contribution and What Skills You Used
- The End Results
- Use of Metrics
Before going into detail about every part, let's first take a look at a typical example of a bullet point on your resume. Let’s say that you are applying for a job as a Team Lead for a call center. Your bullet point conveying your experience would look something like this: “Responsible for overseeing my team to complete their Customer Service Tasks.” Or something along those lines.
A bullet point that is vague and gives me nothing tangible to latch onto. It doesn’t give me details like the size of the operation you are involved in, how you help your company, etc. That’s what we are going to rectify now. Allow me to make this average bullet point awesome by modifying it using the model that I mentioned earlier.
Active Verb
Your bullet points need to start with an active verb. Verbs are interesting. They pique the interest of the reader because you are telling the reader you've done something of importance. They shine the spotlight on your abilities instead of your responsibilities. You don’t want boring bullet points that are monotonous and stale. When you start your bullet point with a bold, active verb, you demand attention from the reader. Now let’s incorporate this into our sample bullet point.
“Responsible for overseeing my team to complete their Customer Service Tasks” becomes “Directed my team to complete their customer service tasks.”
See the easy modification? By simply changing the beginning, we have already made the bullet point bolder and stronger, emphasizing what you did. The bullet point has now become easier to read and active.
Skills and Contribution
Skills and contributions in your job are the meat and potatoes of your bullet point. This part needs to showcase your unique accomplishments and how you were integral to the company's function. For this, you are going to highlight your skills. This will make your resume more detailed and give the reader a glimpse of your skillset that is relevant to the job you are gunning for.
The key part to remember here is that it is not a good idea to mention a mundane thing you did. You want to put in things that can be counted as significant accomplishments. The way you word it also matters a lot. For example, if you are a community manager for a social media platform, writing something like “created posts for Twitter” would not stand out. Sorry, that does not sound impressive. On the other hand, if you say “designed and implemented a new social media strategy,” sounds far more impressive. Now, let’s continue modifying our sample bullet point.
“Directed my team to complete their customer service tasks” becomes:
“Directed team of customer service specialists to provide email support to customers using Zendesk.”
I am sure you can already tell the difference. Our bullet point is starting to come together to concisely demonstrate previous workplace success. In our example, the reader now knows that you have experience with Zendesk, and it is a skill you possess. They are now also aware that you were in charge of customer service specialists. Boom, 2 key areas of experience contained in a sentence. That's how you make a strong impression.
Results
When a company is hiring someone above all else, they want someone that can help them improve. They want someone who can give them results, and your bullet point needs to show that you are capable of generating outstanding results.
When you craft a bullet point, ask yourself: “How did your contributions and skills help your company?” Now, not every accomplishment is going to have a monetary or clearly tangible result. But you can still show how you positively impacted the job. Let’s further modify our sample bullet point and add results to it.
“Directed team of customer service specialists to provide email support to customers using Zendesk” becomes:
“Directed team of customer service specialists to provide email support to customers using Zendesk, enabling the use of a new platform for smoother operations.”
See, we didn't use an exact value or measurement but we discussed the tangible outcome. That immediately demonstrates success but we can do better and be even more specific by adding metrics.
Metrics
No matter which language you speak, everyone understands numbers. Metrics are universal and make everything more tangible. You want to let the company know the exact scope of your abilities. For that, you are going to include metrics in two parts of your bullet point:
- Contributions – This will help you convey the amount of hard work and effort you put into your job.
So, “Directed team of customer service specialists to provide email support to customers using Zendesk, enabling the use of a new platform for smoother operations.”
will become:
“Directed team of 20 customer service specialists to provide email support to customers using Zendesk, enabling the use of a new platform for smoother operations.”
2. Results – This is going to help you tell the company what you can actually do for them and add legitimacy to your claims.
So, “Directed team of 20 customer service specialists to provide email support to customers using Zendesk, enabling the use of a new platform for smoother operations” becomes:
“Directed team of 20 customer service specialists to provide email support to customers using Zendesk, enabling the use of a new platform for more than 200,000 customers three weeks ahead of schedule.”
Now that is a perfect bullet point ready to be put atop your resume.
Conclusion
Congratulations if you made it this far in the article. If you follow this formula and craft your bullet points accordingly, your resume will be impressive. That means you are doing the correct things to ensure you get hired in no time.
As you can see from our simple example, using this formula easily allows you to elevate the level of your resume above the rest and make it stand out.
One final reminder to drive this home as you craft your resume bullet points: Strong and bold bullet points are key for landing jobs.
I hope that you find this article helpful and were able to learn from it. Best of luck on your job hunt!
One Final Thought Before You Leave
Should resume bullet points have periods?
One more thing before you go. Allow me to provide an answer to the age old question: Do you put periods after your bullet points on your resume? And the resounding answer is “YES!” Put a period after every single bullet point.
Here is a resume punctuation pro-tip: If you make the wise decision to add periods on you bullet points, make sure you put periods on ALL of your bullet points! Do not miss any. Either add them to all of your bullet points or go ahead and throw punctuation out of the window.
Apply this knowledge:
Do you have your cover letter ready to go but need to finish your resume? Grab my resume template bundle as well as my e-book on how to ace your resume and you will be ready to craft your resume so that you can get noticed and get hired. The most valuable thing I should mention is in the resume template bundle because that's where I walk you exactly how to easily craft past job experience using the resume bullet point formula. And always remember, you
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