Writing Tips

A few practical things to check before you send your resume.

Top 6 resume mistakes

The top 6 mistakes are:

Spelling and grammar errors
Missing email/phone information
Using passive language instead of action verbs
Poor organization or wordy bullets that make your resume hard to read
Not demonstrating your specific accomplishments
Being too long (keep it to one page!)

If any of these are surprising, or you're not sure how to avoid them, read on.

Use specific language

When describing your work experience, you want to use specific, action-driven language.

Being specific means using precise language and, when it helps, numbers that show the size or result of your work. For example,

"Helped improve profits"

is stronger as:

"Achieved 5% increase in profit margins by changing packaging process"

Use action verbs

Action verbs like "accomplished", "improved", "impacted", "produced", "spearheaded", and many others are strong verbs that attribute a result to you. For more examples by section, use the resume action verbs guide.

Saying something like:

"curriculum administrator and mentor"

doesn't make a strong statement. Rewriting using actions verbs makes what you did sound more impressive. For example,

"Maintained onboarding curriculum used to train over 30 new recruits"

is more specific. It also gives you room to write a separate bullet about the mentorship work if that experience matters for the role.

Use the same specific language in your application note. The free cover letter builder helps you turn the best resume examples into a focused PDF cover letter.