Action Verbs

Compare “Responsible for the company newsletter” with “Relaunched the company newsletter for 2,000 subscribers”. The second starts with an action verb and immediately tells the reader what you did. Some useful verbs by theme:

• Leading: led, managed, coordinated, mentored, directed.
• Building: built, designed, launched, created, set up.
• Improving: reduced, increased, streamlined, automated, fixed.
• Persuading: negotiated, presented, won, secured, convinced.
• Analysing: analysed, measured, forecast, audited, researched.

Use the past tense for past roles and the present tense for your current one.

Recruiters skim. A list of duties — “responsible for”, “involved in”, “helped with” — tells them what the job was, not how well you did it. Action verbs push each line toward an outcome, and pair naturally with quantified achievements. Vary them, keep them honest — don't write “led” if you supported — and drop vague filler like “worked on”.

A quick test: cover everything after the first word of each bullet. If the verbs alone — “launched, cut, trained, won” — already sketch what you're good at, your CV is doing its job. If they read “helped, worked, was, did”, rewrite those lines first.

When you build your CV by chatting, the assistant writes what you tell it in stronger words — without adding anything you didn't say. Ask it to “rewrite my last job with impact” and check the result. The ATS score (Premium) also weighs evidence — numbers and strong action verbs — and points at lines that only list duties.