How to Write Strong Descriptions (Resume Bullet Point Formula)
Formatting your resume and deciding relevant experiences to highlight takes time. However, effectively describing your experiences is the most important task to showcase your skills and accomplishments. The descriptions you include on your resume provide the majority of the content and context for reviewers. It’s these descriptions that set apart your resume from others.
Resume Bullet Point Formula – PARQ Statements
We suggest using PARQ statements as a framework for crafting these strong descriptions.
For each task or responsibility consider the following: What problem were you seeking to address? What action did you take to address this problem? What were the results of your action? To strengthen your description further, try to include measurable amounts that show the scope or impact of your action such as finances (budgets, fundraised amounts, costs), counts (number of events, team members, customers), or percent changes (increase or decrease). Once you have determined these answers, you can summarize the content into one (or more) bullet points.
Below we’ve included some examples of “before” and “after” resume bullet point statements to demonstrate this.
| P (Problem) | A (Action) | R (Result) | Q (Quantify) |
| What is the Problem, Purpose, or Project that you need to describe? | What Action did you take to solve the problem? What key Skill did you use or develop? | What were the Results and outcomes from your actions? | What was the Scope or Impact in terms of measurable amounts such as finances ($), counts (#), and percent changes (%)? |
| After school chemistry tutoring | Tutored students in weekly sessions | Catered to their individual learning needs | Met with 10 students weekly |
| Needed to market an upcoming event | Designed and printed a brochure | Attracted students to the event and increased attendance | Attendance increased by 20% |
Before: Provided after school tutoring in chemistry
After: Tutored 10 students in chemistry weekly, while assessing student needs to adapt instruction
Before: Designed brochures and social posts to promote an event
After: Designed digital and print promotional materials for signature event resulting in a 20% increase in attendance
Action Verbs to Highlight Skills
Each of your bullet statements should start with an action verb that highlights the key skill you are trying to convey. We have put together a worksheet to help you utilize strong action verbs to highlight relevant skills in your resume. Use this list to get started building your bullet point statements or to find a stronger verb for an existing statement. It is recommended to write your action verbs in past tense for all completed experiences. You may choose to use present or past tense for experiences that are still ongoing. You can click the box below to view or print this list for future use.