Some verbs for your resume

Summary

·  Verbs, or "doing" words are an integral part of the resume

·  When describing your skills, use verbs

·  Check out the suggested list of verbs below

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Some what? I don’t know whether you are a member of a generation that missed out on being taught grammar, parts of speech and so on, in primary school. Being of a (slightly!) older generation myself, I can still remember Miss Pennington intoning to Class 3A "a verb is a being, having, or doing word". We of course would have to memorise this and endless other definitions and rules, on penalty of a sharp rap over the knuckles from a ruler that seemed almost as large as Miss Pennington.

Perhaps you missed out on the joy of that, but verbs are still being and having and doing words (some things don’t change) and thinking about appropriate verbs to use can be a very useful part of preparing a résumé (and a covering letter, for that matter).

What you are trying to do in an application is to tell prospective employers who you are, what you have by way of qualifications and experience, and what you believe you can do. I will concentrate here on the last of these - your "doing" verbs. All I am talking about here is a way of concentrating your thinking on the actual skills and experiences that might be relevant to employers, and ways of describing them that draw on what you have actually done. Many university careers services will have copies of a long list of these. Here are just a few:

Adapted, analysed, applied, built, calculated, coached, compiled, conducted, controlled, co-ordinated, delivered, developed, distributed, edited, established, formulated, gathered, generated, helped, identifies, implemented, initiated, investigated, led, made, maintained, operated, organised, prepared, produced, programmed, promoted, reported, researched, sold, supervised, taught, tested, trained, tutored, typed, used.

I think you will get the idea - drawing in an active way on all the things in your background that are worth telling an employer about. And it is important to note that they can be things from any part of that background, not just your academic studies. In fact, talking about verbs is just another way of reminding you of the "generic skills" that careers advisers and others are so fond of talking about these days.

You might have led on the sporting field, planned a concert or a group trip, helped people during a summer job. All of these are skills that can mean quite a lot to employers, and they are not things that an employer can necessarily assume you have acquired during your courses.

It is your job to look for the verbs that will really convey what you have done and what you believe you can do. No one else will do it for you.