Verbs: Too much of a good thing?

Verbs are your best friend in resume writing. Powerful action words give a resume an active and energetic tone. A good resume is full of leading verbs: cut costs, increase revenue, lead teams, build programs, open offices.

But you can have too much of a good thing.

I recently worked on a resume that included this bullet point:

• Plan, develop, coordinate, and execute projects and activities…

That’s four verbs. While each is a strong player on its own, strung together they are bulky and distracting. Remember that the main point of a resume is to showcase your career information in a clear and condensed manner so the key points pop.

My client’s original intent with this list of verbs was to indicate that he managed projects from conception through completion. One simple edit to convey that point without a laundry list of verbs is to indicate the start and stop points.

• Plan and execute projects…

As a rule of thumb, never string more than two verbs together. Any more and your bullet point becomes murky and even a little silly.