One of the best ways to figure out what to add to your resume is by looking at some resume bullet point examples.
According to recent polls, hiring managers said that less than 9% of the resumes they received were well written.
When you realize that on average each job opening gets 250 applications and only 6 people get an interview, it can make job searching feel very daunting.
But that’s exactly where your resume bullets come into play.
Taking a little time to learn how to write resume bullet points can be the difference between landing interviews vs wasting your time.
That’s why in this post I’ll show you:
👉 If you’d like to get even more ideas for your bullet points, you can try one of these free resume builders that I’ve tested and recommend.
Each one of these can generate bullet points for your specific job using AI. These have gotten quite good these days so definitely worth a try.
Alright, now let’s jump in!
While it may be exciting to jump straight into writing your resume bullets, there is a very good reason to learn what makes a great bullet point first.
On average, we only have about 10–30 seconds of a recruiter’s attention.
That’s why it’s absolutely crucial to make every bullet point count.
Before we jump into the resume bullet point examples, let me first cover the two big mistakes that you should avoid when writing your resume bullets.
If you avoid these two mistakes, you’ll be ahead of 90% of other job applicants.
The most common mistake that job seekers make when writing their resume bullets is adding too much information into every bullet.
This is a very easy mistake to make.
After all, when you’re not getting any interviews, the first logical conclusion to make is that you don’t have enough on your resume.
But, working with hundreds of job seekers, I’ve actually seen the opposite to be true.
👉 As we cover in our free resume course, resumes with 350–500 words tend to get the most interviews.
(Have you checked your resume word count? If you haven’t, just go to “Tools” and “Word Count” in Google Docs or Word to find out)
The easiest way to shorten your resume is by following these 5 simple steps:
Use ctrl + F (command + F on a Mac) to find all your "ands"
The second most common mistake is when job seekers write out their responsibilities instead of their actions.
Here are some examples of poorly written resume bullets:
These types of bullet points are passive and merely explain what skills you have.
Now, you might be thinking, “isn’t that the point of a resume?”
Well yes, your resume should show your skills, but it should do so through your actions.
👉 Here are those exact same 3 bullet point examples, but written in active voice using power verbs:
Compare the two examples and you can see how much clearer and more concise the active versions are.
Now that we’ve seen the two most common mistakes, let me explain what makes a great resume bullet point in the first place.
In short, every great resume bullet point has 3 elements:
Diego Granados, a Senior Product Manager who has landed jobs at Cisco, Microsoft, and LinkedIn, explained this best when he said:
“It’s best to write your accomplishments with the X-Y-Z framework. In my resume I write my accomplishments using the X-Y-Z formula (shared by Google recruiters).
👉 “Accomplished [X], as measured by [Y], by doing [Z]”
Follow this resume bullet point formula as close as possible, but don’t be afraid to put your own style into it (as long as you share your X,Y & Z).”
I’ve read hundreds of resumes over the years and I’ve noticed that most job seekers tend to get 2 out of the 3 elements in there, but rarely have all 3.
As you look through the resume bullet point examples below, notice that the strongest ones tend to have X, Y, & Z elements in them.
In simple terms you want to fill in the blanks for the following sentence:
I [Power verb] by doing [Skill/Method] to accomplish [result].
If you’re in a role where it might be tricky to figure out these pieces, here’s a great video from award-winning career coach, Gillian Kelly, that can help:
Alright, now that we know what to look for in a bullet point, let’s look at some resume bullet point examples.
If you’re writing a sales resume, you’ll want to focus a lot of your resume on the metrics that drive the business forward. Luckily, most sales roles have a lot great metrics you can use.
Here are a few bullet point examples for sales roles:
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Product Manager resumes tend to focus a lot on cross-functional collaboration. That being said, you’ll still want to incorporate metrics into your resume if you want it to be as strong as possible.
Note: These resume bullet point examples tend to also work very well for other cross-functional roles such as Project Manager resumes and Product Marketing resumes.
One of the main struggles when writing resume bullet points for a customer service role is a lack of clear metrics. Many customer service professionals find it hard to put metrics behind what is a very “people” focused role.
If you’d like to learn how to write better bullet points, I recommend reading our full resume bullet point guide here. In the guide, I break down exactly how to find your metrics for these types of roles.
Let’s take a look at some resume bullet point examples for more people-focused roles:
The best marketing resumes have a mixture of both hard and soft skills. The most common mistake that job seekers make when writing a marketing resume is not including enough metrics.
While it can be hard to find exact metrics for your marketing job, there are definitely ways to estimate your impact. You can see how in the resume bullet point guide I put together here.
Let’s take a look at some solid marketing bullet point examples you can use for your marketing resume:
Finance resumes and Operations resumes have a lot in common since they are both very numbers driven. This makes writing resume bullet points a bit easier, but having a good diversity of skills shown is still very important.
In our resume bullet point guide I explain how to balance your bullet points across your various skills. Let’s take a look at some finance bullet point examples (which can also be adapted for operations roles):
One question I frequently get asked is, “should I include periods after bullet points on my resume?” In most cases, you do not need to include periods after your bullet points.
The only time you would need to include periods after your bullet points is if you’re writing in full sentences. As we’ve covered before, it’s much better to use bullet points instead of sentences or paragraphs on your resume.
You may have heard that some people these days are using resume bullet point generators to create their resumes.
While resume bullet point generators can be hit or miss, they can be useful. I personally like to use these generators to get ideas for my resume bullet points (which I then customize to my exact needs).
If you’d like to get even more ideas for your bullet points, you can try one of these free resume builders that I’ve tested and recommend. Each one has a resume bullet point generator that’s actually very useful for getting ideas.
Feel free to use any of the bullet point examples above on your resume. And, to learn more about the other elements you should include on your resume, such as how to write your resume summary or how to choose your resume color, I recommend going through our free resume course.
The course is broken up into 5 minute videos and is free for everyone. You can get the course by dropping your email below and you’ll instantly have access to it (plus a ton of useful tools):
Enter your email and I'll send you instant access to my 3 job-winning courses plus a few of our best guides that will fast forward your next career move.
Read more resume, LinkedIn, and interview best practices on The GHYC Blog.
