© Can Stock Photo / profotokris

Writing a resume can be tough.  Formulating all of your accomplishments into clear and concise sentences can take many revisions.  One of the best ways to give your resume the extra spice it needs to stand out is to include a good variety of resume action verbs.  Just like adding lots of spices and herbs to your favorite dish, you need to keep the reader (recruiter) interested in your profile by adding lots of resume action verbs.

These action words should speak to all of your hard work and add the “flavor” needed to set you apart from the pack.  If you use the word “manage” over and over again throughout your resume, you may not get the attention you deserve.  Add some spice!

Take a good look at each word that starts each bullet on your resume.  All bullets should begin with resume action verbs and there should be variety on every line.

Use a Variety of Resume Action Verbs

Below are some examples of solid resume phrases using resume action verbs.

• Launched multiple new customer requested features including …
• Built go-to-market strategy for …
• Directed, coached and mentored a team of 5 people

Highlight Key Metrics

Another key item that recruiters look for are metrics.  Show off your accomplishments by showing true measurable growth stats that you can speak to clearly.

• Achieved and exceeded increasing annual quotas: 2015 (140%); 2016 (121%); 2017 (125%)
• Built lead generation program that contributed to the company’s growth goal of reaching 1,000 clients in 18 months
• Wrote and published over 150 articles in 12 months

Take a look at these examples of sample resume templates as well to get ideas about formatting options. See more tips on updating your resume.

Resume Action Verbs

Utilize many of these resume action verbs and add some more punch to that stale resume!

Upload Your Resume to StartWire

After fine tuning your resume as much as you can, you should definitely send it to family and friends to review and check for spelling, grammar, and any comments on anything you may have forgotten to include.   Once you are ready to share your resume with recruiters, you should upload your resume to StartWire.com and you’ll have multiple options to send it out for possible call backs for opportunities.

(c) Can Stock Photo / profotokris

Uh oh.

Better keep your Facebook clean and use StartWire to keep your job search confidential!

Tim Tyrell-Smith is the author of 30 Ideas of Successful Job Search, and the founder of TimsStrategy.com. He is a former marketing VP for Horizon Foods, and writes for U.S. News & World Reports online feature, “On Careers.”

What’s the biggest networking mistake that you see job seekers make?

A big mistake I see job seekers make is networking without specific job search objectives.  You need to be able to answer a simple question:  “What Are You Looking For?” Don’t give vague answers or suggest multiple industry or job title targets.  Be specific.  Offer data that your network can use to remember you.  Make sure your objectives are listed out on your networking bio and business cards as a tangible reminder.  Make it easy for people to help you.

You say networking without a purpose is just socializing, is a written agenda necessary among friends or at social gatherings?

It depends on why you are out networking.  If your purpose is simply to meet new people and make friends, that’s fine.  But if your objective is to find a job or build a consulting business, you need to work with a plan.  The goal is to be less impulsive and more strategic. 

I ask job seekers at events three questions: 

What are you doing here?

Who are you here to meet?

How does this event fit with your goals for the week?   

My goal is to provoke new thinking about why people make certain decisions about events and how they can better plan so that they walk away from an event with smart new connections, new leads and more information about target companies.  Not just a stack of business cards.

Any suggestions to build credibility for a job if you’ve never worked in a field or don’t have any contacts?

First of all, trying to change jobs or industries is never easy.  And this economy has made it very difficult.  Because without specific “ready to run” experience, you are a risky hire. Here are two options:

1. Get experience now that allows you to appear less risky.  Examples include an internship, a new certification, a consulting gig or even a significant volunteer experience.  All of these will at least give the hiring manager a reason to look at your resume without squinting.
2. Get a job in your current field or industry and work to transition over time.  Take on cross-functional roles and begin networking internally.  Prove yourself and build credibility.  Then you can strategically pursue that new role with people that already know you.

Do you see a difference in networking for a job and when you’re in a job?

The basic successful habits of networking are the same.  Help others, be personable, smile and be memorable.  But it is a lot easier to network when you are working.  For some there is an added confidence in having a platform (a company behind you).  And there are some very smart and talented job seekers out there who are desperately looking for employed contacts.  

As an employed person, you have knowledge and information you can share, use to help others and use to meet motivated new connections.  Many employed people live under a rock and don’t crawl out much.  Find one event per month minimum to attend.  And offer an hour or two each month to help people via informational interviews.

Are there any questions I haven’t asked that I should be asking? What’s the question, and what’s your answer?

How do you get the most out of a networking event? Here are my suggestions.

1. Prepare – find out who will be there and arrange a pre-meeting if someone is a key potential contact.
2. Get there early – it is easier to network in a smaller crowd.  
3. Resist the urge to sit down – instead, find people to meet up until the speaker starts talking.
4. Ask for help – Don’t let pride prevent you from telling people that you need help with something.
5. Connect with organizer – meeting organizers know a lot of people and can connect you with key people in your industry or field.
6. Stay late – often you can get a few minutes with the speaker or potentially offer to buy a key person a cup of coffee on the way out.
7. Follow up – Find out how you can get in touch with key people after the event. Ask if they’d be open to connecting on LinkedIn.  Suggest a coffee meeting a few days later.

Parting Words: What’s your “use it now” actionable—advice for job seekers (in 140 characters or less):

Write a regular monthly e-mail update to your network. Remind them of your specific job search objectives and give them a reason to stay engaged in your job search.

Wow.  The service standard in recruiting is set so low. Just read the first few paragraphs of this article about how a job seekers was HAPPY to get a rejection letter. Seems that passes as world class.

The StartWire DEV team is working on a solution issue as we speak. The alpha is live and it’s amazing. 

Throw this into Google.

site:techcrunch.com “series b”

You can also substitute a,c,d for b. What do you get? Companies featured in one of the leading technology blogs who are annocuing their raise (Series A, B, C, D). So not only do they have cash…but they are kinda hot.

Want to work for them? First, you need to be smart. But being creative and forward also helps.  Read the article. Find the founders online…and meet them, greet them, and impress them.

PS. If you know someone at Techcrunch. Tell them to write about StartWire. 

Good article here by Alison Doyle on how to avoid the resume black hole. It outlines some great techniques and general best practices for job search.

That said, the StartWire DEV team has been working hard on this issue and we’ve got a technology solution that our alpha testers think is pretty cool. Beta will launch in March. If anyone is interested in being in the beta team, drop me a line @ chris.forman {at} startdatelabs.com.

The team over at Indeed do some really cool and valuable stuff for job seekers. Their list of the 10 fastest growing job trends is a case in point.

Recently they analyzed their giant job posting dataset to define the fastest growing job posting ‘buzzwords’.  Why is this more than neat…but really valuable? Recruiters search by keywords when they use resume databases. If the buzz words below are the ‘hot’ new terms showing up in job postings…you can bet they will be used to ‘find’ resumes. If you are looking for a new job…and have used any of these technologies, platforms, or methodologies…your chance of getting your resume reviewed will be dramatically increased if you get these specific terms on your CV.

Indeed’s Fastest Growing Job Trends 

• HTML5
• Mobile app
• Android
• Twitter
• jQuery
• Facebook
• Social Media
• iPhone
• Cloud Computing
• Virtualization

But the best job search advice we can give is to check our StartWire – where friends and experts help you find work!

Great article on Fortune about this really important subject (always like hearing from Susan Joyce!). Too bad they didn’t mention StartWire. Solving this problem is what we do…private, social collaboration for job search!

– Chris

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One of the great features of StartWire is the ability to ask world-class job search experts for tips and techniques to rock your job search.  We’ve been buried with great, deep, & thoughtful questions.

Interestingly, a question that keeps getting asked is how to structure a job search query on job boards to find a jobs that actually match what you are looking for.  

At AIRS, one of the things Tim & I taught recruiters how to do was use Boolean logic & search engines to find great candidates.  The same principles work great for job seekers looking to search job databases like StartWire, CareerBuilder, & Indeed.
Check this out.

Let’s say you are looking for a job as a Sales Manager.  Most job seekers simply enter the words Sales Manager into the keyword box and hit GO. The problem is that the search engine at your favorite job board will search for jobs that have the words Sales and Manager…but not necessarily together.  The result is jobs that aren’t very targeted.

But if you put “Sales Manager” in quotes, your results are transformed.  You have results where the phrase Sales Manger is present. Even better, sites like StartWire support advanced commands like title:”sales manager” that allow you to not only specify a specific phrase…but WHERE on the job posting it should appear.

Hope this helps.  To learn more, find great jobs, and get access to some of the best job search minds in the US (all for FREE), join StartWire!

– Chris