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Lesson 2: Now Do It!

Action, Action, Action

Look at your resume, in whatever shape it’s in at the moment. Have you listed your duties/responsibilities? How do they sound? What about your functional section or list of accomplishments? First, get them down. NOW we can work with them.

You want to attract attention to your resume. You need action. Sometimes it’s not what you did, but how you say it that counts. You need to change the wording to power words or action words. You also need to match tense (if the job was in the past, the tense should be past). Your sentences will get more punch if you use action verbs/power words to start.

For the statement: Handled cash flow for company

Which do you like better?

Managed cash flow for company

Manipulated cash flow for company

Implemented cash flow for company

Organized cash flow for company

The tone AND meaning changed with some of these words. These words are NOT all interchangeable. The point? It’s not enough to just choose a word from a list – you have got to ensure the meaning is still preserved. Only two could be used from this list and still keep the integrity of the responsibility. Which ones?

The links in the link section and the word list in Dummies give excellent samples for power words. Don’t be afraid to use your own words, just be active, not passive. If the word is not something you’d use anyway, then don’t. Keep to simpler versions of action words. At the interview they’ll catch it from your style of speech, and will think you did not create your resume, so how much could be true on it?

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