Where to Place Bullet Points in Resume

Skills section
Your potential employers don’t need an extensive description of your skill sets. Rather, a short list of the most relevant skills in your repertoire should work just fine. You should include a good mix of soft skills and hard skills within this section. Hard skills focus on work-related skills that prove you are qualified to perform your daily duties. Soft skills, on the other hand, can show off your personality traits and how you would fit into the company culture.

Here are a few bullet point examples to use:

• Social media management
• Teamwork
• Time management
• Adobe Suite
• Microsoft Office
• Adaptable
• Strong work ethic
• Verbal and written communication
• Creative thinking

Work experience section
Again, you don’t have to dive into your entire work history in this section. Bullet points can help you condense all the duties you performed at your previous jobs in just a few sentences. Make sure that the first bullet point you use is the most important part of the job. Ordering your bullet points by relevance to the job description can display the more stand-out aspects of your job first.

Always list your work experience in reverse-chronological order. By showing off your most recent accomplishments first, you can demonstrate to the hiring manager that you are qualified for a specific position. For instance, a recent role as an administrative assistant can help propel you to become an office manager within the same company.

Tips on Writing Good Resume Bullet Points

Writing good bullet points on your resume can be tough. Here are a few tips to help you start writing more effective resume bullet points.

Use action verbs
Action verbs are verbs that convey a specific action. Strong action verbs include:

• Assessed
• Coordinated
• Created
• Boosted
• Maintained
• Transcribed

Recruiters tend to look for candidates who are proactive and nothing shows that off more than using a strong action verb. You should always start your work experience bullet points with at least one action verb, such as:

• Coordinated with team members to increase department sales by 20%.
• Assessed customer needs and increased customer satisfaction by 15%.
• Composed daily reports, billing and client documents for the front office.

Use only relevant information
Creating a strong bullet point requires you to use only the most relevant information to the position. For instance, you don’t want to talk about the arts when you’re applying for a data analyst job.

If you’re having trouble brainstorming the best skills or experience to add to your resume, then scan the job description for relevant keywords and other phrases to use instead.

Use accurate metrics
You can show off your work achievements and professional experience best when you use numbers and metrics. For instance, you don’t want to just say that you helped your department increase sales. Rather, you want to indicate that you “boosted department sales by 30%.” Any further elaborations of these metrics can later be touched on in either your cover letter or during the job interview itself.