Bullet points are one to two lines in length. They convey some combination of your accomplishments, skills, and knowledge. They typically begin with an action verb and do not contain personal pronouns. They are also tense specific; if the experience occurred in the past, the bullet points should be written in past tense. Follow the steps below to help develop bullet points for your résumé.
Step 1: Brainstorm
Think about the skills and competencies you want your readers to know about you. These could be broad industry-related skills and/or tailored/unique skills.
Step 2: Construct Your Bullet Points
Each bullet point you write should include three main elements about the experience you participated in:
What You Did
What was one responsibility you had or one task you performed?
This is typically the first word that begins your bullet point (e.g., Coordinated…. / Designed … / Advised…) More about action verbs
How You Did It
How did you complete that task? What transferable skills, technical skills, and/or career competencies did you use?
Why You Did It
Why was it important for you to use those skills to perform that task? Explain the impact you had.
Pro Tips:
- When starting the beginning phases of bullet point development, it can be helpful to start by making a list of all the WHATs first and then going back to fill in the HOWs and the WHYs.
- When including bullet points within an entry determine the order in which you would like them to appear, knowing that the reader is reviewing your document from top to bottom with the first few bullet points of each entry receiving the most attention.
- Decide if you are going to use periods at the end of bullet points or not and just be consistent.
Step 3: Show, Don’t Tell
Use action verbs to show your reader how you used the transferable/technical skills outlined in Step 2. Each bullet point you write should start with an action verb and have at least one or two more incorporated throughout it.
Step 4: Quantify to Emphasize Impact
Consider quantifying elements within your bullet points to emphasize the scope of your impact or outcomes (e.g., Trained 10 mentors to… | Increased engagement of …by 22%)
Examples of Bullet Points Showing Poor, Better, Best Progression of Development
In reviewing the three examples notice how the bullet point identified as “poor” is very generic and lacks the incorporation of context and significance. The bullet point identified as “better” might include a bit more context or quantify an aspect of the content but still lacks in both of these components. The bullet point identified as “best” typically includes a couple of action verbs, context, and the incorporation of impact and/or outcomes.
Example 1:
Best: Developed and managed two data collection systems, determining appropriate statistical methods and provided analysis plan to three researchers for two diagnostic trials on new flu vaccine.
Better: Developed and managed two data collection systems, determining appropriate statistical methods.
Poor: Developed and managed data collection systems.
Example 2:
Best: Taught historical and contemporary issues relating to civil rights and social justice, spanning the 1890’s to present, incorporating a flipped classroom debate model to class of 45 first year students.
Better: Taught historical and contemporary issues relating to civil rights and social justice, spanning the 1890’s to present.
Poor: Taught historical and contemporary issues relating to civil rights and social justice.
Example 3:
Best: Gathered qualitative data from interviews with 200 previously concussed high school athletes to pilot a new point-of-care technology designed to reduce head and neck trauma by 93%.
Better: Performed field research and gathered qualitative data from concussed student athletes.
Poor: Performed field research.
