You've heard it from me time and again, resumes are not about your past, they're about your future. They represent your past as a focal point for conversation to get you to your future job. There are sections of a resume that are more important than others. Companies, titles, durations, and of course, contact information are essential. However, the most important factor beyond these is the work experience tied to a job. This dreaded bullet point is the variable that will get you noticed or get you thrown out. And contained within is the secret ingredient that will either help you stand out or get you thrown out.
Let's make it simple. To have a great work experience bullet point you need the following:
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An action verb. Try to avoid cliche words and phrases use "Responsible for" and managed.
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A Noun that the action verb acted upon. For example, "increased sales," "Directed Field Operations," "performed clinical trials" -
A Consequence. And it should be quantitative. What happened as a result of your verb-noun? Something had to have happened. If not, you're dead weight - don't expect to attract interest.
Consider the difference between these two statements:
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Managed customer support teams
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Led customer support team to highest customer satisfaction in Amazon's history.
Notice that the first is a dead bullet point. There is no energy there, and it doesn't lend itself to a meaningful discussion about why you should be hired. The second bullet point has life. It is something that you would want to talk about and more so, that an employer would want to talk with you about.
Of course, you can expand from there. For example,
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Led customer support team of 25 to highest customer satisfaction (97.3%) in Amazon's history through the introduction of highly visible performance reports and team-building exercises.
You want to be quantitative wherever possible. Show numbers. Connect your work with local and global consequences if it makes sense. For example,
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Directed global redesign of operations that helped drive stock price from $88 to $193 in less than 18 months.
Reply to this postin with your before and after bullet point examples, and let's see how we can get you a better job faster!