The longer you have been your career, the more information you will have on your resume. With the advent of “big data” and the proliferation of short, byte sized information sources, most businesses are looking for information to be quantified and in compact format. Job descriptions are usually a couple of paragraphs with a lot of bullet points for specifics – you want to mirror this on your resume.
When you are using your resume to apply to a job, you want your information to be concise and informative. After you share your employer name, dates of employment, title(s), and a brief description of your employer, you want your reader to be able to assess your qualifications quickly and easily. What specific on-the-job or educational experience qualifies for you the job?
The single goal of your resume is to net interviews. This is where bullet points help orient your reader/s. They can help you show relevant projects or initiatives that map to the job you are interested in.
The point is to be detailed enough to give the reader an overview and context, but not ramble on and take up a ton of space.
The older or less complex your job, the fewer bullet points you need. An administrative assistant is not going to need the same range of information as a Director of Supply Chain for a hardware company. The trick is to strike a balance between what your responsibilities are and how they positively impact your employer.
Bullet points help strike that balance; the key is to tie them to accomplishments where possible. They should not just be a list of “tasks”, they should illustrate how you solved some sort of problem. Focus your content on the job/s you are applying for - sharing relevant bullet points and experience from your own history - to dovetail with the “responsibility” section on the job description.
For example, the administrative assistant may want to include something like:
Overhauled the purchase order process by collaborating with finance; researched and migrated to Settle.io, diminishing processing time from 5 days to 20 minutes and decreasing error rate by 97%.
If you are in a role that cannot be specifically quantified, use the information from your employer for context.
Middle school math teacher in the largest district in the state (~600 students in grades 6-8). Average class size was 28-35.
Advisor to the Math club, oversee the student peer tutoring program from 2023-Present
Bullet points should make your resume easy to read, with bite size entries that help show your value to a prospective employer. Everything on your resume should reflect your functional skills and refer to problems you are solving.
Comments