How to write resume bullet points
A formula, the rules that trip people up, and 22 examples across 11 roles. Each example shows what someone actually said next to the bullet it became. No number appears in a bullet unless the person said it.
Updated
The formula
A strong bullet says what you did, what it was for, and what changed. In that order, in one or two lines:
Action verb + what you worked on + the result, with a number if you know it
“Responsible for onboarding” describes a job. “Cut time to first report from 21 to 9 days” describes what you did in it. Recruiters skim, so lead with the verb and keep each bullet to one idea.
The rules that trip people up
- Tense. Present tense for what you still do in your current job (“Manage,” “Teach”). Past tense for finished work, including finished projects in your current job (“Launched”).
- No “I”. Start with the verb. The resume is already about you.
- Bullets, not paragraphs. Under each job, three to six bullets are faster to scan than a block of text. Keep a one-line summary at the top if you want prose.
- One to two lines each. About 15 to 30 words. Longer usually means two achievements in one bullet.
- Numbers only if they are yours. See how to quantify without making up numbers.
Examples by role
Each pair shows the answer someone gave in plain words, then the bullet. Read the first part as closely as the second: the habit to learn is how little the facts change.
Software engineer
They said
“Our checkout page took around 4 seconds to load on mobile. I moved image resizing to the CDN and cut a lot of unused JavaScript, and it got down to about 1.5 seconds.”
The bullet
Cut mobile checkout load time from about 4 to 1.5 seconds by moving image resizing to the CDN and removing unused JavaScript.
They said
“I was on call for payments. I wrote runbooks for the 12 alerts that kept paging people at night.”
The bullet
Wrote runbooks for the 12 most frequent payments alerts, giving on-call engineers a documented first response for each.
Product manager
They said
“We rebuilt onboarding so enterprise customers could set it up themselves. The first report used to take 21 days, now it’s 9.”
The bullet
Replaced manual enterprise onboarding with a guided setup flow, cutting time to first report from 21 to 9 days.
They said
“I talked to 15 customers who had canceled. Most said they couldn’t export to Excel, so we shipped export the next quarter.”
The bullet
Interviewed 15 customers who canceled, found missing Excel export was the most common reason, and shipped it the following quarter.
Registered nurse
They said
“I work nights on a 32-bed med-surg unit, usually 5 or 6 patients each shift.”
The bullet
Care for 5 to 6 patients per night shift on a 32-bed medical-surgical unit.
They said
“I precepted the new grads on our unit, 8 of them last year, mostly on charting in the EHR and our fall-prevention checklist.”
The bullet
Precepted 8 new-graduate nurses in one year, covering EHR charting and the unit’s fall-prevention checklist.
Sales representative
They said
“My quota was $1.2M and I closed $1.38M. I was 2nd out of 14 reps.”
The bullet
Closed $1.38M against a $1.2M quota, ranking 2nd of 14 account executives.
They said
“I started asking for a referral at the end of every implementation call. That brought in 9 new deals over the year.”
The bullet
Added a referral request to every implementation call, sourcing 9 new deals in a year.
Customer service
They said
“I handled about 60 chats a day and my satisfaction score stayed around 96%.”
The bullet
Resolved about 60 customer chats a day with a satisfaction score of about 96%.
They said
“We kept answering the same refund question, so I wrote a help article for it. My lead said refund tickets dropped by about a third.”
The bullet
Wrote a refund help article after spotting a repeated question; refund tickets fell by about a third, as reported by the team lead.
Retail associate
They said
“I closed the store 4 nights a week. I ran a team of 5 and did the cash count.”
The bullet
Closed the store 4 nights a week, leading a team of 5 and reconciling the cash count.
They said
“I reorganized the stockroom by size and season so we could find things faster over the holidays.”
The bullet
Reorganized the stockroom by size and season to speed up restocking during the holiday rush.
Teacher
They said
“I teach 5 sections of 9th grade biology, about 140 students.”
The bullet
Teach 5 sections of 9th-grade biology to about 140 students.
They said
“I started a lunchtime tutoring club before the state exam. 25 kids came regularly and most of them passed.”
The bullet
Founded a lunchtime tutoring club for the state biology exam with 25 regular attendees, most of whom passed.
Marketing coordinator
They said
“When I took over the newsletter it had 8,000 subscribers. A year later it had 14,500.”
The bullet
Grew the company newsletter from 8,000 to 14,500 subscribers in one year.
They said
“I coordinated 3 trade shows: the booth, shipping, and scheduling the sales team.”
The bullet
Coordinated 3 trade shows end to end, from booth and shipping logistics to sales team schedules.
Project manager
They said
“We moved 40 clinics onto the new scheduling system in 6 months. I owned the rollout plan.”
The bullet
Owned the rollout plan that moved 40 clinics to a new scheduling system in 6 months.
They said
“I set up a weekly risk review because we kept finding vendor problems too late.”
The bullet
Set up a weekly risk review to surface vendor problems earlier in each project.
Administrative assistant
They said
“I managed the calendars for 3 executives and booked all of their travel.”
The bullet
Managed calendars and booked all travel for 3 executives.
They said
“I moved our paper invoice files to a shared drive. It took a weekend, but now anyone can find an invoice.”
The bullet
Moved paper invoice files to a shared drive so anyone on the team can find an invoice.
Student or new graduate
They said
“For my capstone, a team of 4 of us built an app for the campus food pantry to track stock. They still use it.”
The bullet
Built an inventory app for the campus food pantry with a team of 4; the pantry still uses it.
They said
“I worked 20 hours a week at the campus library the whole time I was in school.”
The bullet
Worked 20 hours a week at the campus library throughout my degree.
Five mistakes to fix first
- Duties instead of results. “Responsible for,” “helped with” and “worked on” hide what you did. Start with the verb that names your part.
- Round, unexplained percentages. “Improved efficiency by 30%” invites the question “measured how?” Use a number you can explain in one sentence, or none.
- Three ideas in one bullet. Split it. One bullet, one achievement.
- The same verb every time. Led, built, cut, grew, wrote, set up, trained, closed. Use the one that is literally true.
- Buzzwords. “Results-driven team player” says nothing a bullet can’t show.
From what you said to a bullet
Saying what you did is easy; turning it into a bullet is the hard part. Hirova does that step on iPhone: it asks about your work, sets your answers as bullets, and shows the words behind every number so you can confirm it.
- Import or start fresh. Bring in a PDF or a photo of your resume. Hirova reads it on your iPhone; the file is not uploaded.
- Answer a few questions. Three to five short questions about what you owned and what changed. Type or dictate, and skip any you like.
- See your words set as bullets. Hirova rewrites your answers as resume lines in a consistent voice.
- Check every fact. Each title, date and number shows the words it came from. Nothing reaches your draft until you confirm it.
- Export a PDF. A typeset, text-based PDF you can send from the share sheet.
Questions
- What are bullet points on a resume?
- Short lines under each job that each describe one thing you did and what came of it. They start with a verb and run one to two lines.
- How many bullet points should each job have?
- Three to six for your current or most relevant role, and one to three for older or less relevant ones. Fewer, stronger bullets beat a long list of duties.
- Should resume bullet points be in present or past tense?
- Present tense for work you still do in your current job, past tense for everything finished, including completed projects in your current job.
- Should every resume bullet have a number?
- No. Use a number when you know it and can explain where it came from. Otherwise describe scale, frequency or what changed. An invented metric is a liability in an interview.