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How to Find the Best ESL Jobs Today

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Does Your Resume Contain Action Words?

by Candace Davis

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A resume is a marketing summary of your relevant talents, experiences, and contributions as an employee. It provides a synopsis of who you are as a professional and what value you can bring to the organization. Your goal is to create a content-rich resume that will stand out above the rest, secure a job interview, and ultimately win you that desired dream job.

In today’s fast-paced world of time crunching, potential employers and hiring managers simply cannot evaluate all the resumes they receive in great detail; most simply give their stack of resumes a hurried glance then toss the lot of them aside where they ultimately find their way to the “round” filing cabinet. Don’t let this happen to yours.

How do you ensure that your resume is strong and captivating? Writing eye-catching sentences that effectively describe your talents and achievements can be one of the most difficult things you do when preparing your resume: some find impossible. To achieve the highest impact, you must begin your bullets with action words. Action words are verbs ending in “ed” that descriptively communicate an achievement. Here is a small sample of descriptive action words that will add some liveliness to your resume:

Accomplished

Delivered

Investigated

Revamped

Achieved

Demonstrated

Launched

Reviewed

Adopted

Designed

Lowered

Revised

When writing your skills and achievements bullets, make them attention-grabbing and brief. You can add descriptive adverbs and adjectives (e.g., creatively, regularly, patiently, concisely, etc.) to sell the reader on how well you did the task and bring the statement to life. You don’t need to add an adverb to every achievement bullet, but do so occasionally.

Writing success stories is best achieved through concise bulleted lists, beginning with action words that accentuate compelling and relevant points. When developing your bulleted list of accomplishments, ask yourself the following questions:

What challenge have I faced or what problem have I resolved?

What action did I take?

What was the result of the action that I took?

The answers to these three questions provide proof to an employer that you successfully solved a problem or overcame a challenge to achieve success. The more specifically you describe your skills, strengths, and the situations in which you have demonstrated them, the stronger the impression you will make.

Below are some examples of before and after bulleted accomplishment statements. If you were an employer, which bullet would immediately engage your curiosity?

Before:

Used Language Arts, Math, Writing, Art, and Social Studies in developing a thematic unit on “Community”.

After:

Effectively integrated Language Arts, Math, Writing, Art, and Social Studies through the development and implementation of a thematic unit on “Community”, providing students with the opportunity to learn through diverse learning modalities.

Before:

Managed the classroom using various methods.

After:

Successfully maintain effective classroom management by establishing clear, consistent behavior guidelines, creating an organized classroom, promoting mutual respect, and making learning exciting through engaging lessons and activities.

Now that you recognize the importance of descriptive action words and how to use them to create an engaging and eye-catching marketing document, you are on your way to job search success.

ESL employment recommends A+ Resumes for Teachers as a quality, reliable and effective provider of resume writing services. Their services are backed by a 100% satisfaction gaurantee.

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