Developing Powerful Resume Bullet Points for Work Experience
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Using effective and persuasive language when writing a resume can be a difficult task. Employers will spend a brief amount of
time looking through your resume, so it’s important to make an impact through your work experience bullet points. Enhance
your qualifications through your experiences by quantifying the quality of your work and capitalizing on your transferable
skills.
Good, Better, Best Experience Bullet Point Examples
The three examples below demonstrate how skills and attributes gained from work experiences can be used effectively.
Analyze how the “good” bullet points are strengthened with the use of strong verbs, numbers, and explicit details.
Example 1
Candidate Profile: Two years of professional experience as a top seller who delivers exceptional customer service
Skills the Candidate is highlighting: Customer Service, Employee Effectiveness
o Good: Sell jewelry to customers
o Better: Provide customer service by listening to the clients’ needs and identifying jewelry
o Best: Provide personalized customer experiences by listening to the clients’ needs and identifying specific jewelry
items. Exceeded quarterly jewelry sales benchmarks by more than 25% from the previous quarter.
The Best Example shows the candidates effectiveness as a sales-person by using data and transferable skills.
Example 2
Candidate Profile: Recently completed a 6 month internship as a project management intern for an IT company, and expected
to graduate in the next 3 months
Skills the Candidate is highlighting: Employee Effectiveness
o Good: Worked with supervisor on software
o Better: Worked with senior project manager on software development
o Best: Under supervision of senior project manager, developed software application that aided 4 start-up companies
in their on-line recruitment tracking system
The Best Example shows the candidate as a contributing team member when working with the senior project manager.
Complete the following steps to develop experience bullet points that highlight your
qualifications and transferable skills:
1. Read through the guide Bullet Point Construction for a Resume.
2. Have a conversation with your current or previous employer to identify job-specific
responsibilities and accomplishments you obtained.
3. Use powerful action verbs to highlight your responsibilities using the Career Center
Resume and Cover Letter Writing Guide.
Use present tense verbs for current work experiences and past tense verbs for
experiences you no longer do or jobs that you no longer have.
4. Review “Good, Better, Best” examples below. Observe how specific job experiences
can be re-worded to quantify and highlight candidate qualifications.
5. Complete the Good to Best Exercise.
6. Apply understanding by editing your own work experience bullet points.
Example 3
Candidate Profile: Sophomore business administration major looking for summer internship opportunity; past experience as
YMCA Lead Camp Counselor
Skills the Candidate is highlighting: Leadership, Management
o Good: Watched children in camp activities
o Better: Facilitated camp activities for children in a safe environment
o Best: Coordinated weekly activities for 60+ children ages 5-10 in a safe and caring environment while reinforcing
rules and procedures
The Best Example shows that the candidate was responsible for a large number of children and was concerned with safety
and organization.
Good to Best Exercise
Use the good and better examples below as a guide for creating the “best” example using the space provided. Look through
the candidate profile and skills the candidate is attempting to highlight in the good and better examples to make a strong
“best” example.
Candidate Profile: Elevated sales associate responsible for training 20 new cashiers
Skills the Candidate is highlighting: Leadership, team-work, supervisory
o Good: Taught employees how to use the register
o Better: Instructed and mentored new hires in cashier training
o Best:
Candidate Profile: Office assistant responsible for scheduling, answering phone calls, photo-copying
Skills and Qualities the Candidate is highlighting: strong customer service, work ethic, juggling a variety of tasks,
organized
o Good: Handled daily administrative tasks
o Better: Carried out a variety of administrative tasks in a fast-paced working environment
o Best:
Candidate Profile: Student Employee working guest relations at the Student Recreation Center
Skills and Qualities the Candidate is highlighting: customer service, handling of recreation equipment
o Good: Handled customer questions and complaints appropriately
o Better: Welcomed students, faculty, and community members to the SRC while managing recreational equipment
check-out
o Best:
Look at your own bullet points on your resume. Re-write your good and better bullet points into strong, best statements!
