Power words to use in your resume

What do people mean when they say “resume power words?”. Why use resume action words anyway?

All of us, at jobteq, are recruiters, who have read ... maybe hundreds of resumes? Therefore, we know what recruiters look for on resumes and we know how they think. We have also some very good graduated psychologists in our team, so we can help you make recruiters and hiring managers assume and feel certain things about you when they read your resume. You need to stand out to get recruiter′s attention! Choosing the right language for your resume can have a profound impact on its attractiveness to recruiters.

"Responsible for"

Now, if you are looking to strengthen your resume language, start by removing the phrase "responsible for" from the document. Being responsible for something simply means that you were asked to do it, watch it, monitor it, whatever.

If you crafted your resume from the starting point of your own background (versus crafting it based on the skills, experience and qualities employers are looking for), it's likely some of this verbiage snuck into your resume.

Instead of saying "Responsible for managing a team of two testers and three programmers…" say "Managed a team of three programmers and two testers…" State what you did, not what you were asked to do.

Passive versus active

You are the subject of your bullet point sentence. Now, you shouldn't write your resume in first person, but put and imaginary "I" at the beginning of each bullet point. The next word should be a specific active verb. It shouldn't be a word like "received," where someone else took the initiating action.

For example, instead of saying "Received monthly accounts receivable report, deposited payments and performed account reconciliations." you could say "Managed the deposit of payments and performed client account reconciliations to align accounts receivable to monthly reports."

?Strong word choice

Now that you are thinking about choosing active versus passive verbs, you'll want to select more powerful verbs versus weaker ones. Recruiters want to hire people who get things done. They would rather hire someone who "drove" something than someone who "monitored" something. They want to see impact and ownership. They want someone who "redesigned" or "reimagined" something rather than someone who revised something.

?Results = power

While most people talking about "power words" or "strong verbs" are mostly just focused on the verbs, it's important to consider the impact of the rest of the language. Include results where you can. If your mind just went to specific metrics, and you are thinking "I don't have those!" We encourage you to think differently about results. Results could be what you enabled another organization to do or something you kept from going off the rails.

Take credit for your work

One more thing. Don't be afraid to take credit for your work. It is good when you are a?team player, however not everything what you have done is ?we have done“. Take a?credit for your work and don′t be affraid to show it!

We hope this helps demystify "power words" and helps you identify some opportunities to not only pump up your verbs, but make your resume contents stronger overall.