The formula
Start with a strong verb, say what you did, and finish with the result or the scale. Action, task, result.
Built [what] using [how], which [result]. For example: "Built a student attendance dashboard in React and Firebase, cutting the weekly reporting work for faculty from two hours to ten minutes."
Start with a verb
Verbs such as built, designed, led, analysed, automated, improved, reduced, launched, wrote and tested tell the reader what you did. Avoid openings like "Responsible for" or "Worked on", which describe a role rather than an achievement.
Add numbers where they are true
Numbers make a claim concrete: how many users, how much faster, how much money or time saved, how many people you worked with. If you do not have an exact figure, a fair estimate ("about 200 users") is better than none. Never invent one.
Before and after
- Before: "Worked on the company website." After: "Rebuilt five pages of the company website in HTML and CSS, improving the mobile layout and page load time."
- Before: "Responsible for social media." After: "Planned and posted 3 Instagram posts a week for the college fest, growing followers from 800 to 2,100 in two months."
- Before: "Did data analysis in Python." After: "Analysed 12,000 sales records with Python and pandas to find the three slowest-selling product lines for the quarterly review."
Keep them tight
- Aim for one or two lines per bullet.
- Three to five bullets for your main role or project; fewer for older or smaller ones.
- Put the most impressive bullet first.
- Use the past tense for finished work and the present tense for your current role.
Match the job
Before applying, reorder or reword your bullets so the work most relevant to the posting comes first, using the same terms the posting uses. Then run your PDF through the ATS checker with the posting pasted in, and open your resume to make the changes.
