Resume action verbs, grouped by what you did, with examples of each in a bullet

How to use this list

Pick the verb that matches what actually happened, at the right strength. "Led" means you were accountable; "coordinated" means you organised; "contributed to" means you were part of it. Inflating the verb is the most common way an honest resume becomes a dishonest one. Vary verbs across bullets; three lines starting with "Managed" read as one line.

Leading and managing

• Verbs: led, directed, managed, oversaw, headed, coordinated, supervised, chaired, mentored, coached, hired, trained, delegated, scheduled, mobilised, steered, drove, championed, founded, established
• Example: "Led a 9-person support team across two time zones; cut first-response time from 4 hours to 35 minutes."

Building and creating

• Verbs: built, designed, developed, engineered, architected, created, launched, shipped, implemented, deployed, programmed, prototyped, drafted, authored, produced, assembled, installed, configured, integrated, migrated
• Example: "Built a rate-limiting service in Go handling 30M requests/day; cut abuse incidents 70%."

Analysing and planning

• Verbs: analysed, assessed, audited, evaluated, forecast, modelled, measured, mapped, researched, surveyed, tested, diagnosed, identified, investigated, quantified, benchmarked, prioritised, planned, scoped, specified
• Example: "Analysed 18 months of churn data and identified the 3 onboarding steps responsible for 60% of cancellations."

Improving and growing

• Verbs: improved, increased, grew, raised, boosted, accelerated, expanded, doubled, tripled, scaled, strengthened, optimised, streamlined, upgraded, modernised, revamped, redesigned, restructured, transformed, turned around
• Example: "Grew paid-social revenue 2.4x on flat spend by shifting to short-form creative."

Saving and reducing

• Verbs: reduced, cut, saved, lowered, decreased, eliminated, consolidated, simplified, automated, shortened, minimised, prevented, resolved, recovered, renegotiated, trimmed
• Example: "Automated 15 reconciliations in Excel, cutting month-end close from 7 days to 4."

Selling and persuading

• Verbs: sold, closed, won, negotiated, secured, generated, acquired, converted, retained, renewed, upsold, pitched, presented, influenced, partnered, sourced, prospected
• Example: "Closed $3.4M in new ARR (128% of quota) across 11 enterprise accounts."

Communicating and writing

• Verbs: wrote, edited, documented, published, presented, briefed, reported, communicated, translated, facilitated, moderated, advised, consulted, liaised, represented, promoted, publicised
• Example: "Wrote 25 help-center articles that cut repeat support contacts 18%."

Supporting and caring

• Verbs: supported, assisted, served, cared for, treated, administered, monitored, maintained, operated, processed, handled, responded, triaged, educated, counselled, advocated, safeguarded
• Example: "Cared for 5–6 med-surg patients per shift and led a fall-prevention huddle that cut unit falls 40%."

Verbs and phrases to retire

• Responsible for, duties included, tasked with, helped with, worked on, participated in, assisted with: replace with what you actually did.
• Spearheaded, leveraged, synergised, utilised, orchestrated: the AI-and-thesaurus vocabulary recruiters now skim past. "Led", "used" and "ran" read better.
• Was, is, am: a bullet should not start with a form of "to be".

Tense and consistency

Past tense for previous roles (led, built), present tense for the current one (lead, build). Keep the whole of each role in one tense. Every bullet in the resume should start with a verb; no exceptions, including the skills-style bullets some people add under experience.