Strong action verbs can help drive home your previous success and career achievements. They are important to help you start statements that explain your responsibilities and accomplishments.

Most people don’t realize that resumes aren’t written in perfect English. The statements are sentence fragments that generally begin with a verb.

These statements make up the paragraphs that are written under the job headings in the experience section. Sentences in the bullet points of accomplishments are also written using this structure.  Instead of saying “I helped” or “I produced” the pronoun is taken out and the action verb starts the sentence.

Sometimes we see resumes use words like “handled” when describing an action.  Usually you can use a stronger more compelling verb.   However, it is often difficult to think of good verbs. Sometimes, you can get stuck using the same verb such as multiple times when it is better to mix up statements with other similar verbs.

Below you will find a list of verbs and their synonym (verbs with a similar meaning).  It is also helpful to have an online thesaurus opened in a window, which can help you build more vibrant statements.