Resume Writing – Using Examples

It’s important to be able to illustrate your accomplishments so employers can visualize you as one of their employees, making a valuable contribution to their company or organization.

A well-written resume should have plenty of examples of you in action. Once you have chosen the type of resume you will use – chronological, functional, or combination – the next exercise will help you effectively fill your resume with vivid examples of your skills and abilities.

Begin by picking a verb from the action verb list that follows. Starting with this verb, describe an action you took and the result that followed. Some examples might be:

• Organized student tutorial workshops at campus computer center
• Edited monthly newsletter for community windsurfing club
• Represented local citizen’s group at land use and development meeting
• Directed marketing activities for a United Way fund drive, resulting in a 15 percent increase in pledges
• Implemented successful recycling plan at my sorority
• Performed accounting duties at student-run cafe
• Reduced ice cream inventories to minimize spoilage and high storage costs
• Awarded top sales representative for six consecutive months
• Wrote the company’s first customer satisfaction survey resulting in a 33 percent increase in customer responses