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What Are Action Verbs?
Action or dynamic verbs help you describe your relevant resume skills, work history and career accomplishments. However, some action verbs are more commonly used than others. If recruiters read these verbs often enough, they can lose all meaning and make your resume less effective.
You can easily sidestep this by using strategic, unique synonyms for common resume action verbs. Let’s look at the following examples of common resume action verbs and more robust alternatives that you can use to improve your application.
Examples of standard action verbs include:
- Led
- Managed
- Improved
Examples of unique resume action verbs to use instead
Instead of led, consider:
- Oversaw
- Directed
Instead of managed, use:
- Coordinated
- Instructed
- Designated
Instead of improved, try:
- Streamlined
- Strategized
- Restructured
This article covers examples of action verbs that can help revitalize your resume and job search.
Strong Resume Action Verb Examples
Find our favorite leadership, accomplishments, communication, experience and creative action verb examples to help you kickstart your resume.
PRO TIP: We created this list of verbs to help you start, but you still want your resume to be read organically. Be strategic with the placement of your resume action verbs — make sure they make sense without the context of your skills or accomplishments and align with ATS-friendly, or applicant tracking system, writing practices.
46 better leadership action verbs
Instead of standard leadership terms like led, oversaw, guided or managed, consider using authoritative action verbs like:
- Administered
- Advocated
- Advanced
- Aided
- Arranged
- Appointed
- Assembled
- Assessed
- Assigned
- Assisted
- Budgeted
- Chaired
- Coached
- Coordinated
- Counsel
- Cultivated
- Delegated
- Developed
- Directed
- Empowered
- Enabled
- Energized
- Established
- Executed
- Demonstrated
- Diversified
- Handled
- Headed
- Hired
- Guided
- Initiated
- Launched
- Lobbied
- Mentored
- Operated
- Orchestrated
- Overhauled
- Oversaw
- Piloted
- Planned
- Produced
- Programmed
- Scheduled
- Spearheaded
- Supervised
- Supported
39 resume action verbs for job accomplishments
Rather than overused action verbs like helped, fixed or contributed, consider using unique words like these examples of action verbs:
- Achieved
- Aligned
- Attained
- Bolstered
- Consolidated
- Developed
- Devised
- Doubled
- Discovered
- Engineered
- Enhanced
- Established
- Facilitated
- Familiarized
- Formulated
- Furthered
- Handled
- Implemented
- Improved
- Inspired
- Invented
- Merged
- Organized
- Outlined
- Patched
- Prioritized
- Regulated
- Recruited
- Regulated
- Reorganized
- Repaired
- Resolved
- Restructured
- Restored
- Revised
- Simplified
- Streamlined
- Strengthened
- Verified
List of 34 communication action verbs
Instead of common words that promote your intersocial soft skills like partnered or worked with, consider using these strong communication resume action verbs.
- Advised
- Approved
- Answered
- Clarified
- Collaborated
- Contracted
- Contributed
- Corresponded
- Counseled
- Edited
- Educated
- Encouraged
- Demonstrated
- Diagrammed
- Fostered
- Guided
- Helped
- Hosted
- Illustrated
- Informed
- Inspired
- Instructed
- Mobilized
- Modified
- Motivated
- Originated
- Persuaded
- Proofread
- Recommended
- Reviewed
- Supported
- Taught
- Trained
- Translated
39 action verbs list to describe experience
These alternate action verbs can help illustrate your career experience’s gradual growth, helping you land a potential promotion.
- Accomplished
- Advanced
- Appointed
- Authorized
- Chaired
- Created
- Delegated
- Developed
- Devised
- Directed
- Earned
- Eliminated
- Enhanced
- Established
- Exceeded
- Founded
- Generated
- Headed
- Invented
- Increased
- Initiated
- Led
- Managed
- Navigated
- Originated
- Outperformed
- Oversaw
- Performed
- Planned
- Presided
- Produced
- Reached
- Restored
- Secured
- Strengthened
- Succeeded
- Surpassed
- Targeted
- Won
24 creative action verbs for resumes
Consider using these compelling resume verbs to help hiring managers understand your creative career contributions.
- Acted
- Adapted
- Authored
- Brainstormed
- Built
- Crafted
- Created
- Composed
- Conceived
- Curated
- Customized
- Designed
- Displayed
- Drafted
- Founded
- Ideated
- Inspired
- Navigated
- Planned
- Shaped
- Strategized
- Transformed
- Unified
- Volunteered
Our Favorite Job-Specific Action Verbs
We bundled strong action verbs with adjectives but understood that some terms work better in some industries than others. Consider using the following examples for jobs within the following career tracts.
24 sample action verbs for sales jobs
You can review these sales resumes for additional examples of compelling action verbs. Consider using the following list of strong resume action verbs below for your next sales resume:
- Adapted
- Advanced
- Advised
- Anticipate
- Automate
- Clarified
- Converted
- Closed
- Demonstrated
- Deployed
- Designed
- Devised
- Enhanced
- Facilitated
- Guided
- Generated
- Informed
- Implemented
- Negotiated
- Networked
- Persuaded
- Pinpointed
- Planned
- Regulated
Let’s see how an experienced sales associates can promote themselves with effective verbs.
Sample sales work history:
- Identified an underserved market and generated new customer revenue of $2,000-$5,000 weekly.
- Continuously reviewed market trends and analytics to anticipate customer needs, price schedules and discount rates.
- Partnered with finance and project managers to develop automated reporting and product output processes.
List of 56 action verbs for finance
Visit our in-depth accounting, banking, billing collections, business operations, purchasing and finance resume examples to find additional appropriate resume action verbs for your application.
- Acquired
- Administered
- Advanced
- Amplified
- Analyzed
- Assessed
- Audited
- Calculated
- Capitalized
- Centralized
- Chaired
- Charted
- Closed
- Consolidated
- Coordinated
- Developed
- Devised
- Directed
- Discovered
- Evaluated
- Established
- Executed
- Forecasted
- Formalized
- Formulated
- Gained
- Generated
- Implemented
- Incorporated
- Increased
- Instituted
- Launched
- Managed
- Maximized
- Measured
- Merged
- Modeled
- Navigated
- Negotiated
- Operated
- Orchestrated
- Partnered
- Pitched
- Planned
- Projected
- Quantified
- Reduced
- Restructured
- Saved
- Secured
- Signed
- Sourced
- Stimulated
- Sustained
- Upsold
- Yielded
As you can see, the following job seeker examples used similar terms to describe their successful financial mergers and increased client base.
Finance work sample:
- Worked with internal support staff to audit and analyze potential acquisitions in the trust and real estate planning, investment management, life insurance and brokerage markets.
- Optimized auditing filing and approval process to reduce analysis standstill and project wait times by over 62%.
34 examples of marketing action verbs
View our sample marketing resumes to see how fellow marketing professionals use the suggested action verbs:
- Audited
- Aligned
- Analyzed
- Cultivated
- Conceptualized
- Designed
- Developed
- Engineered
- Forecasted
- Formulated
- Generated
- Identified
- Implemented
- Improved
- Interpreted
- Launched
- Marketed
- Maintained
- Negotiated
- Optimized
- Orchestrated
- Overhauled
- Planned
- Projected
- Produced
- Promoted
- Redesigned
- Remodeled
- Researched
- Revitalized
- Solved
- Standardized
- Spearheaded
- Updated
The following example demonstrates how a competitive marketing job candidate can use resume action verbs to boost their resume.
Example of a marketing work history:
- Implemented new marketing campaigns across multiple customer-facing channels, including print, video, and the newly branded company website, to increase brand awareness and site traffic.
- Collaborated with SEO to audit and optimize existing web pages, increasing organic search traffic by 72% and netting a $1.2 million profit in six months.
36 research action verb examples
Consider using the following action verbs for your research resume. You can find additional examples of these terms in these helpful resume examples; biology, chemistry, environmental, library/museum, mathematics, medical, mental health, pharmaceuticals, science or statistics resume samples.
- Assembled
- Audited
- Automated
- Built
- Calculated
- Charted
- Compiled
- Computed
- Detected
- Diagnosed
- Evaluated
- Experimented
- Extracted
- Formulated
- Initiated
- Inspected
- Integrated
- Interpreted
- Invented
- Mapped
- Measured
- Modeled
- Organized
- Peer-reviewed
- Projected
- Planned
- Programmed
- Quantified
- Regulated
- Researched
- Reviewed
- Solved
- Studied
- Summarized
- Systemized
- Tested
The following sample shows that practical use of research verbs can help market your analytical and innovative skills.
Sample research resume entry:
- Developed experimental design and characterization of a series of non-steroidal selective glucocorticoids for pharmaceutical purposes.
- Wrote and revised standard lab procedures for various projects to minimize contamination and lost data.
18 strong action verbs for customer service jobs
Try using any of the following resume action verbs for customer service gigs. You can see some of these terms in action with the following resume examples: administrative, banking, casino, cosmetology, customer service, event planning, food service, health care support, hospitality, insurance or retail.
- Adjusted
- Altered
- Arranged
- Assisted
- Counseled
- Encouraged
- Facilitated
- Fashioned
- Fulfilled
- Guided
- Helped
- Influenced
- Measured
- Motivated
- Promoted
- Proposed
- Provided
- Referred
Using compelling resume verbs can help you upsell your customer service skills.
Customer service resume excerpt:
- Served as liaison between on-site sales staff and regional managers to ideate and promote seasonal products and meet weekly sales goals.
- Processed and placed weekly product replacements as needed and scheduled sufficient staff to unpack and organize the inventory.
Add Action Verbs Fast With a Resume Builder
Strategic action verbs can help improve your resume, but a strong job application requires an effective combination to impress hiring managers. Our Resume Builder can help you write a powerful resume by unlocking the following:
- Professionally designed resume templates.
- Pre-written resume entries based on your job goals.
- Unique action verbs and customizable text templates.
- Updated suggestions based on the current job market.
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