Action verbs for your CV, by field

How to pick the right opening verb, plus curated lists with example bullets for 13 fields.

The first word of a CV bullet does more work than any other. Readers skim down the left edge of the page, and the verbs are what they see. “Responsible for”, “Helped with”, “Worked on” tell them nothing about what you did. “Rebuilt”, “Negotiated”, “Trained” tell them a lot.

Why the verb matters

A verb sets the level of ownership. Compare:

Before: Helped with the move to a new payroll system.

After: Migrated 340 employee records to the new payroll system and ran parallel payrolls for two months to check every result.

“Helped with” could mean anything from leading the project to attending one meeting. A precise verb answers the reader’s first question (what exactly did you do?) before they ask it.

How to pick one

1. Describe the actual action. Ask what you physically or mentally did: wrote, built, negotiated, checked, taught, fixed. The plainest accurate verb usually beats a grand one.
2. Match your level of ownership honestly. “Led” means you were in charge. “Coordinated” means you organised others. “Contributed to” means you were part of it. Overstating is easy to catch in an interview.
3. Prefer specific to general. “Managed” covers a lot of ground. “Scheduled”, “budgeted”, “recruited” or “supervised” say which part of managing you did.
4. Vary them, but not at the cost of accuracy. Five bullets in a row starting with “Managed” reads flat. Do not swap in a thesaurus word you would never say out loud, though; “Spearheaded” and “Orchestrated” often sound inflated.

Overused verbs

These are not wrong, but they appear on so many CVs that they no longer carry information. Use them only when nothing more precise fits.

Weak openings the builder flags

The builder looks for openings that hide what you did, such as “responsible for”, “duties included”, “worked on” and “helped with”. When it finds one, it suggests stronger alternatives. The full list is shown below the field lists on this page.

Tip: A verb alone does not make an achievement. “Spearheaded the filing” is still a duty. Pair a precise verb with a result and, where you can, a number, using the achievement bullet pattern.

Using the lists below

Each field has a curated list of verbs with an example bullet. The examples are fictional and are there to show how the verb sits in a real sentence, not to be copied word for word. Pick the verb that describes what you actually did, then write your own bullet with your own numbers (the quantify achievements guide shows where to find them).

Tense matters too: present tense for your current role, past tense for previous ones. The tense and pronouns guide covers the details.

Weak openings the builder flags

The builder flags a bullet that starts with one of these 23 phrases, and suggests the alternatives shown. They describe a duty rather than what you did with it.

Action verbs by field

13 lists, 262 verbs, each with an example bullet. Open a field to see it.