# Action verbs for a resume, with a real bullet for each

An action verb opens a bullet with what you did: built, cut, led, won. Below are the verbs that open the work-history bullets of every example résumé in the library, counted, grouped by the kind of claim they make, and each shown in a whole bullet so you can see the result that follows it.

A verb only works when the rest of the bullet says what changed. Every example below ends on a figure, a scale or an outcome.

Start a résumé: https://cvaurum.com/app

## How to use action verbs on a resume

Open each bullet with the most specific verb that is true: "cut" or "rebuilt" says more than "worked on" or "responsible for". Use the past tense for past roles and the present for the job you hold now.

Vary the verbs down a page, but never at the cost of accuracy: a reader trusts "ran" over "spearheaded" when that is what happened.

## Verbs for leading people and work



- Ran (43 bullets): “Ran the brand’s first television and video-on-demand burst on a £2.1M budget; measured sales uplift paid it back 1.7 times inside the year.” ([Brand Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-manager))
- Led (27 bullets): “Led 40 web and API penetration tests for finance and health clients, two of them under intelligence-led red-team rules.” ([Application Security Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/application-security-engineer))
- Trained (17 bullets): “Trained 26 site leads on the new visit-tracking workflow, taking same-day chart closure from 62% to 91%.” ([Business Intelligence Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/business-intelligence-analyst))
- Managed (8 bullets): “Managed teams of five and ran the recruiting loop that hired 11 analysts in a year.” ([Chief of Staff](https://cvaurum.com/examples/chief-of-staff))
- Hired (4 bullets): “Hired and trained six analysts, four of whom now lead teams of their own.” ([Head of Data](https://cvaurum.com/examples/head-of-data))
- Coordinated (3 bullets): “Coordinated Christmas point-of-sale across 600 stores, delivered on time and 12% under budget.” ([Brand Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-manager))
- Owned (3 bullets): “Owned revenue and inventory sections on 14 manufacturing and retail audits under FRS 102, on engagements up to £220m of turnover.” ([Investment Banking Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/investment-banking-analyst))
- Supervised (3 bullets): “Supervised three B.Tech project students through their column studies, two of whom presented at a national conference.” ([Research Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/postgraduate-research-associate))

## Verbs for building and making



- Built (77 bullets): “Built the churn scorecard customer success still works from; accounts in its top decile churned at six times the base rate.” ([Analytics Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/analytics-engineer))
- Wrote (49 bullets): “Wrote the territory account plan that eight reps now work from; new-hire ramp fell from seven months to four.” ([Account Executive](https://cvaurum.com/examples/account-executive))
- Rebuilt (43 bullets): “Rebuilt the cold-call opener around one question about dispatch delays, lifting connect-to-meeting rate from 9% to 16%.” ([Account Executive](https://cvaurum.com/examples/account-executive))
- Designed (23 bullets): “Designed the retest process that replaced a full re-engagement, cutting client cost by a third and closing findings a fortnight sooner.” ([Application Security Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/application-security-engineer))
- Set (18 bullets): “Set up the baseline profiles and macrobenchmark run that keep p90 cold start under 1.2s; a regression now fails the build.” ([Android Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/android-engineer))
- Delivered (17 bullets): “Delivered 31 identity projects for restaurants, direct-to-consumer beauty and two non-profits; twelve clients returned for a second engagement.” ([Brand Designer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-designer))
- Introduced (17 bullets): “Introduced source contract tests, taking silent schema breaks from roughly two a month to none across the last three quarters.” ([Analytics Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/analytics-engineer))
- Redesigned (11 bullets): “Redesigned the pack after 12 shopper sessions; the time taken to find the range on shelf in eye-tracking tests fell from 4.4 to 2.9 seconds.” ([Brand Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-manager))
- Drafted (8 bullets): “Drafted internal audit reports for a 40-branch retail chain, documenting cash-handling gaps at seven branches that were closed within the quarter.” ([Audit Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/audit-associate))
- Modeled (7 bullets): “Modeled the subscription funnel end to end and showed that 31% of trials never reached the first integration step, which drove an onboarding rewrite.” ([Analytics Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/analytics-engineer))
- Launched (6 bullets): “Launched the online parts store that now takes 29% of orders and cut quote turnaround from two days to 20 minutes.” ([Director of Strategy](https://cvaurum.com/examples/director-of-strategy))
- Produced (6 bullets): “Produced electrical designs for 40 primary-care refurbishments, each delivered inside a six-week survey-to-issue window.” ([Electrical Design Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/electrical-design-engineer))
- Started (6 bullets): “Started an internal newsletter now read by 84% of staff, retiring an all-hands slide deck that 9% of them opened.” ([Communications Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/communications-manager))
- Shipped (5 bullets): “Shipped the podcast download queue, taking offline listening from 4% to 22% of sessions.” ([Android Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/android-engineer))
- Modelled (4 bullets): “Modelled and checked 60 reinforced-concrete transfer beams for a nine-storey residential scheme, clearing every one through internal review without a resubmission.” ([Graduate Structural Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/graduate-structural-engineer))
- Opened (4 bullets): “Opened four dark stores and two sortation centres, each reaching planned throughput within six weeks of first dispatch.” ([Head of Operations](https://cvaurum.com/examples/head-of-operations))

## Verbs for improving a result



- Cut (70 bullets): “Cut median sales cycle from 94 days to 61 by moving the security review to week two instead of the week before signature.” ([Account Executive](https://cvaurum.com/examples/account-executive))
- Replaced (28 bullets): “Replaced 60 hand-maintained SQL views with a tested dbt project, ending a standing Monday ritual of patching broken reports.” ([Analytics Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/analytics-engineer))
- Grew (17 bullets): “Grew value share from 4.1% to 6.3% in 24 months while three own-label ranges entered the category, holding price at a 14% premium.” ([Brand Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-manager))
- Automated (13 bullets): “Automated weekly campaign reporting across six channels, returning about 15 hours a month to the media team.” ([Analytics Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/analytics-engineer))
- Moved (11 bullets): “Moved attribution from last click to a position-based model, reallocating $180,000 of quarterly spend toward two undercredited channels.” ([Analytics Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/analytics-engineer))
- Brought (9 bullets): “Brought app size from 61MB to 24MB with dynamic feature modules, which lifted install completion 9% on prepaid devices.” ([Android Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/android-engineer))
- Raised (8 bullets): “Raised average contract value from $41k to $67k by leading with the scheduling module that every won deal in 2023 had in common.” ([Account Executive](https://cvaurum.com/examples/account-executive))
- Lifted (7 bullets): “Lifted gross renewal from 81% to 94% in two years by replacing ad-hoc onboarding with a fixed ninety-day plan and one named success milestone per account.” ([Customer Success Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/customer-success-manager))
- Reduced (7 bullets): “Reduced standby draw from 18mA to 0.7mA on an industrial gateway, taking field battery life from five months to four years.” ([Embedded Software Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/embedded-software-engineer))
- Recovered (5 bullets): “Recovered $58,000 in denied insurance claims in two years by tracking denial reasons nobody had recorded before.” ([Junior Data Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/bootcamp-graduate-data-analyst))
- Consolidated (4 bullets): “Consolidated four legacy ledgers onto one ERP instance on schedule, retiring $180k a year of maintenance on the systems replaced.” ([Financial Controller](https://cvaurum.com/examples/financial-controller))
- Turned (3 bullets): “Turned a stalled reseller channel into 22% of personal bookings by running monthly joint pipeline reviews with three regional partners.” ([Account Executive](https://cvaurum.com/examples/account-executive))

## Verbs for finding and deciding



- Traced (8 bullets): “Traced a ₹1.2 crore revenue cut-off misstatement to despatch records at two plants; the client restated before the audit report was signed.” ([Audit Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/audit-associate))
- Found (5 bullets): “Found that an overlapping join double-counted 11% of no-show appointments; the corrected rate of 17% changed how three clinics staffed Fridays.” ([Business Intelligence Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/business-intelligence-analyst))
- Analysed (3 bullets): “Analysed 18 months of panel data to delist two SKUs and back a third, taking £310k of trade spend off products that would never repay it.” ([Brand Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-manager))
- Mapped (2 bullets): “Mapped 31 km of distribution main in QGIS from field notes the utility had kept only on paper.” ([Research Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/postgraduate-research-associate))
- Reviewed (2 bullets): “Reviewed 1,200 financial promotions a year against the conduct rules and stopped 47 before publication.” ([Compliance Officer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/compliance-officer))
- Tested (2 bullets): “Tested the record-import path against 14 malformed real-world files and found three crashes that had already reached production twice.” ([QA Automation Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/qa-automation-engineer))

## Verbs for winning and persuading



- Closed (11 bullets): “Closed $3.2M in new ARR against a $2.4M quota in 2025, including a 340-technician contractor that had sat open for five years.” ([Account Executive](https://cvaurum.com/examples/account-executive))
- Renegotiated (5 bullets): “Renegotiated the supply contract after charting 18 months of usage, taking $9,400 a year out of consumables.” ([Junior Data Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/bootcamp-graduate-data-analyst))
- Won (5 bullets): “Won listings in two of the four major multiples by rebuilding the category story around the 16–24 shopper, adding £5.8M of annual retail sales.” ([Brand Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-manager))
- Negotiated (3 bullets): “Negotiated 140 vendor and subcontract agreements a year, moving 80% onto a standard template and cutting execution time from 26 days to 11.” ([Contracts Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/contracts-manager))
- Sold (2 bullets): “Sold £3.1M of follow-on work across two accounts, and turned one six-week diagnostic into a two-year delivery mandate.” ([Management Consultant](https://cvaurum.com/examples/management-consultant))

## More verbs from the examples



- Took (23 bullets): “Took on two identity projects towards the end of the break; both became founding clients of the studio opened in April 2019.” ([Brand Designer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-designer))
- Runs (21 bullets): “Runs the weekly model review; time to add a governed metric fell from two days to two hours.” ([Analytics Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/analytics-engineer))
- Rewrote (19 bullets): “Rewrote authorisation around per-object checks, retiring the role-only model behind six of the nine findings in the last external audit.” ([Application Security Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/application-security-engineer))
- Completed (9 bullets): “Completed 31 statutory and tax audit assignments across textiles, hospitality and co-operative banking during the articleship.” ([Audit Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/audit-associate))
- Mentors (9 bullets): “Mentors five CRAs through co-monitoring visits; all five reached independent sign-off inside 7 months against a CRO average of 11.” ([Senior Clinical Research Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/clinical-research-associate))
- Owns (9 bullets): “Owns a dbt project of 480 models and 1,900 tests covering shipments, invoices and accounts; a full refresh runs in 22 minutes.” ([Analytics Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/analytics-engineer))
- Prepared (7 bullets): “Prepared 14 consecutive board packages and cut the average deck from 62 slides to 24 by moving detail into a pre-read.” ([Chief of Staff](https://cvaurum.com/examples/chief-of-staff))
- Taught (7 bullets): “Taught the phonics routine from the school structured-literacy materials; 21 of 25 students passed the end-of-year letter-sound check, against 14 at midyear.” ([Elementary School Teacher](https://cvaurum.com/examples/elementary-school-teacher))
- Chairs (6 bullets): “Chairs the weekly executive staff meeting; decisions closed within two weeks of being logged went from 44% to 91%.” ([Chief of Staff](https://cvaurum.com/examples/chief-of-staff))
- Organised (6 bullets): “Organised sampling at 22 summer events, reaching 140,000 people at 19p a contact against a 34p benchmark.” ([Brand Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-manager))
- Holds (5 bullets): “Holds 99.98% availability across two years and 60 production instances, with no unplanned data loss and no failed quarterly restore test.” ([Database Administrator](https://cvaurum.com/examples/database-administrator))
- Leads (5 bullets): “Leads a finance team of fourteen across FP&A, accounting and revenue cycle, reporting to the chief executive and the board finance committee.” ([Finance Director](https://cvaurum.com/examples/finance-director))
- Reconciled (5 bullets): “Reconciled 1,100 monthly supply orders against invoices, recovering $47,000 in duplicate charges over 18 months.” ([Business Intelligence Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/business-intelligence-analyst))
- Writes (5 bullets): “Writes the weekly product blog; organic sessions grew from 4,200 to 26,000 a month in 14 months, and organic now sources 31% of demo requests.” ([Content Marketing Specialist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/content-marketing-specialist))
- Carried (4 bullets): “Carried about 45 outpatients a month through pre- and post-operative bariatric nutrition, alongside the inpatient gastroenterology referrals.” ([Clinical Dietitian (Head of Nutrition)](https://cvaurum.com/examples/clinical-dietitian))
- Commissioned (4 bullets): “Commissioned 14 machines and two robot cells against a ₹31 crore budget, all inside approved capital.” ([Manufacturing Engineering Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/manufacturing-engineering-manager))
- Held (4 bullets): “Held a fixed-fee model with a two-round revision limit, keeping average project margin above 40% across four years.” ([Brand Designer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-designer))
- Migrated (4 bullets): “Migrated 90 screens from XML layouts to Jetpack Compose across three quarters, cutting UI code 38% and halving the time to build a new screen.” ([Android Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/android-engineer))
- Reviews (4 bullets): “Reviews Ind AS 115 workpapers for two articled assistants before they go to the engagement partner.” ([Audit Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/audit-associate))
- Standardised (4 bullets): “Standardised five years of supplier records ahead of a warehouse migration, removing 18,000 duplicate rows and 340 mismatched tax codes.” ([Data Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/data-analyst))
- Added (3 bullets): “Added Playwright coverage for the six flows that carry 90% of traffic, catching 14 regressions before release in the first quarter.” ([Frontend Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/frontend-engineer))
- Advised (3 bullets): “Advised industrial and distribution clients on growth strategy across 14 engagements, three of which became multi-year mandates.” ([Director of Strategy](https://cvaurum.com/examples/director-of-strategy))
- Caught (3 bullets): “Caught a consent version error at three sites within two weeks of activation; re-consenting 46 patients kept the study clear of a reportable deviation.” ([Senior Clinical Research Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/clinical-research-associate))
- Cleaned (3 bullets): “Cleaned up capitalization tables for nine portfolio companies ahead of exit diligence, resolving 140 unsigned option grants that had stalled two term sheets.” ([Corporate M&A Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/corporate-ma-associate))
- Compiled (3 bullets): “Compiled the documentary evidence index in a ₹2.4 crore commercial suit, admitted by the court without objection.” ([Legal Trainee](https://cvaurum.com/examples/legal-trainee))
- Converted (3 bullets): “Converted the last 30 Java classes to Kotlin, ending null-pointer crashes across the next two releases.” ([Android Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/android-engineer))
- Covered (3 bullets): “Covered 180 inpatient beds alone, screening every admission and writing about 60 therapeutic diet orders a week.” ([Clinical Dietitian (Head of Nutrition)](https://cvaurum.com/examples/clinical-dietitian))
- Handled (3 bullets): “Handled 60 accounts on a shared queue and wrote the escalation matrix that halved the issues reaching the operations director.” ([Customer Success Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/customer-success-manager))
- Maintained (3 bullets): “Maintained an open-source Swift keychain package throughout, shipping four releases including the move to structured concurrency.” ([iOS Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/ios-engineer))
- Maintains (3 bullets): “Maintains the requirement traceability matrix for the group, taking scope disputes at sign-off from a weekly argument to two in six months.” ([Business Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/business-analyst))
- Manages (3 bullets): “Manages the full compliance cycle for 46 companies and filed every CT600 of the 2025 cycle on time, with no late-filing penalties across the portfolio.” ([Corporate Tax Specialist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/corporate-tax-specialist))
- Qualified (3 bullets): “Qualified as a CPA while carrying a nine-client busy-season caseload.” ([Finance Director](https://cvaurum.com/examples/finance-director))
- Scheduled (3 bullets): “Scheduled 40 clinical staff across four sites and built the Excel model that cut overtime hours 23% in its first quarter.” ([Business Intelligence Analyst](https://cvaurum.com/examples/business-intelligence-analyst))
- Trains (3 bullets): “Trains every new nursing batch on high-alert medication double checks; 180 nurses through the session so far, and reported insulin near-misses halved.” ([Clinical Pharmacist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/clinical-pharmacist))
- Answered (2 bullets): “Answered 130 issues across two Swift packages during the break, holding median first response under three days.” ([iOS Engineer](https://cvaurum.com/examples/ios-engineer))
- Cleared (2 bullets): “Cleared a backlog of 640 unapproved invoices in seven weeks and recovered £96k of duplicated payments.” ([Procurement Specialist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/procurement-specialist))
- Digitised (2 bullets): “Digitised the narcotic register, turning a two-hour manual monthly reconciliation into a 15-minute one.” ([Clinical Pharmacist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/clinical-pharmacist))
- Documented (2 bullets): “Documented the Senior Accounting Officer controls for tax, which the group auditors signed off without qualification.” ([Corporate Tax Specialist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/corporate-tax-specialist))
- Ended (2 bullets): “Ended a non-practicing entity campaign across four district court cases by filing three inter partes reviews; the board instituted on all three and the plaintiff dismissed for no payment.” ([Head of Intellectual Property](https://cvaurum.com/examples/head-of-intellectual-property))
- Kept (2 bullets): “Kept regulatory binders for 11 studies inspection-ready through two sponsor audits, which returned three minor findings between them.” ([Senior Clinical Research Associate](https://cvaurum.com/examples/clinical-research-associate))
- Passed (2 bullets): “Passed all thirteen ACCA examinations while carrying a full compliance caseload.” ([Corporate Tax Specialist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/corporate-tax-specialist))
- Placed (2 bullets): “Placed 78 stories in 2024, three of them national features that together drove 61,000 site sessions in a single week.” ([Communications Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/communications-manager))
- Planned (2 bullets): “Planned the launch email calendar for the 2019 catalog; launch week took $214k in orders, a record the brand held for two years.” ([Digital Marketing Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/digital-marketing-manager))
- Processed (2 bullets): “Processed payroll for 210 hourly employees at a 0.3% error rate across 20 months.” ([HR Generalist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/hr-generalist))
- Redrew (2 bullets): “Redrew the ward exercise handout into pictures and eight short sentences after speaking with 20 patients; day-one teach-back rose from five in ten to nine in ten.” ([Physiotherapist (Band 5)](https://cvaurum.com/examples/physiotherapist))
- Released (2 bullets): “Released 46 expired and duplicate bank guarantees the projects had left outstanding, cutting carrying cost by ₹1.1 crore a year.” ([Contracts Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/contracts-manager))
- Reorganised (2 bullets): “Reorganised a nine-company group onto a consolidated payment arrangement, cutting quarterly instalment interest by £27,000 a year.” ([Corporate Tax Specialist](https://cvaurum.com/examples/corporate-tax-specialist))
- Rotated (2 bullets): “Rotated through insight, trade marketing and new product development; built the shopper segmentation still used to brief the design agency.” ([Brand Manager](https://cvaurum.com/examples/brand-manager))
- Sourced (2 bullets): “Sourced and closed four acquisitions worth $210M, including the $96M deal that gave the company its first European service footprint.” ([Director of Strategy](https://cvaurum.com/examples/director-of-strategy))
- Teaches (2 bullets): “Teaches a 24-student third grade class in which 19 met or exceeded the spring reading benchmark, against 11 at the September screening.” ([Elementary School Teacher](https://cvaurum.com/examples/elementary-school-teacher))

## Questions

**What are the best action verbs for a resume?**

The specific ones that match what happened: cut, built, led, won, reduced, launched. The counts below show which verbs carry the most bullets across the library.

**Should every bullet start with a verb?**

Almost every one. A bullet that opens with a verb and ends with a result is the easiest line on a resume to read quickly.

Templates: https://cvaurum.com/templates · Examples: https://cvaurum.com/examples · About CVAurum: https://cvaurum.com/llms.txt