The "Work Experience" section often decides whether a resume will be read further. This is where an employer sees not general words about "responsibility" and "communication skills," but evidence: what tasks you performed, what decisions you made, what tools you worked with, and what results you brought to the company.
The problem is that many candidates describe their experience like a job description. For example: "worked with clients," "managed social media," "was responsible for sales," "participated in website development." Such phrases do not explain how well the person performed the job or how they differ from other candidates. Work.ua explicitly advises focusing not on processes, but on achievements and results, preferably with numbers or other evidence.
A strong description of experience answers four questions: what exactly you did, in what context, what result you achieved, and why it is relevant to the vacancy. The Yale Office of Career Strategy advises building bullet points using the Action + Project + Result formula: action, project or problem, and result. Yale also suggests the "achieved X, measured by Y, by doing Z" approach—that is, the result first, then the measurement, then the specific action.
Why a simple list of duties doesn't work
Duties show what you were responsible for. Achievements show what you actually changed. The difference is critical.
The phrase "responsible for email newsletters" only indicates the area of work. The phrase "rebuilt the email funnel for new users and increased account activation by 18% in two months" already shows action, scale, and result. Such formulations are easier for a recruiter to evaluate because they contain specifics.
Indeed explains that quantitative metrics make achievements clearer, more persuasive, and more memorable for the person reading the resume. Instead of a general "significantly increased sales," it is better to write a precise result, for example, "increased sales by 37%."
Not every experience can be measured in money or percentages. But you can almost always add scale: number of clients, team size, number of tasks, process frequency, deadlines, budget, volume of content, number of requests, workload level, geography, number of users, or internal stakeholders.
Weak: "Worked with clients."
Stronger: "Processed 40–60 client requests per day in CRM, maintaining an SLA response time of under 2 hours."
Weak: "Managed the company's Instagram."
Stronger: "Developed a content plan for Instagram and increased average post reach by 32% in three months."
Weak: "Participated in website development."
Stronger: "Developed frontend for the payment page on Next.js, reducing the checkout steps from 4 to 2."
Formula for a strong task description
The simplest formula for a resume:
Action + task / project + tool or context + result.
For example:
"Automated weekly report preparation in Google Sheets and Looker Studio, reducing manual work time from 5 hours to 40 minutes."
It has everything needed: action — automated; task — report preparation; tools — Google Sheets and Looker Studio; result — time reduction.
MIT Career Advising & Professional Development advises using PAR statements: Project, Activity, Result. That is, you need to describe the project or context, your action, and the result, answering the questions: what did you do, why, and what was the outcome.
For most resumes, this formula is sufficient:
"Did [action] for [project / process / audience], which resulted in [result]."
Examples:
"Optimized SQL queries for an analytical dashboard, reducing report loading time from 18 to 4 seconds."
"Rewrote onboarding emails for new users, increasing open rate from 31% to 46%."
"Implemented response templates for the support team, reducing average first response time by 25%."
"Audited Google Ads campaigns and redistributed the budget to channels with lower CPA."
If there are no exact numbers, you can add verifying context:
"Prepared a knowledge base for the support team, which was used by 12 agents when handling typical requests."
"Coordinated landing page launch between design, development, and marketing, ensuring release before the start of the advertising campaign."
"Wrote API documentation for an internal service to reduce the number of repeated questions from the frontend team."
Start with a strong verb
The first words in an item should immediately show your action. You should not start with "responsible for," "participated in," "helped," or "dealt with." These words often dilute your contribution. It is better to use verbs that show a specific type of work: developed, launched, optimized, automated, analyzed, implemented, configured, led, coordinated, reduced, increased, tested, designed, trained, coordinated.
Yale emphasizes that bullet points should start with an action verb and highlight your specific contribution, not just the team result.
Compare:
"Participated in website redesign."
"Designed a new catalog structure for the website redesign, which simplified navigation for users."
The second version shows exactly what the candidate did. Even if the result was a team effort, the resume should show your personal role: what you initiated, developed, tested, approved, configured, or improved.
Write for the specific vacancy
The same experience can be described differently depending on the job. If you are applying for a project manager role, it is important to emphasize coordination, deadlines, budget, risks, stakeholders. If for a marketing manager — channels, campaigns, leads, conversions, CAC, ROI. If for a developer — stack, architecture, performance, security, code quality, releases.
Glassdoor advises reading the job description carefully and tailoring the experience section to what the employer is looking for, instead of sending the same description for all positions.
This does not mean making up experience. It means choosing from your real experience those tasks that best match the vacancy.
For example, you had a marketing role where you wrote copy, ran ads, and performed analytics. For a content marketer role, it is better to put the content plan, SEO articles, organic traffic, and email at the top. For a performance marketing specialist — ad accounts, budgets, CPA, CPL, ROAS, A/B tests. For a growth marketer — experiments, funnels, activation, retention, conversions.
How to consider ATS
ATS is an applicant tracking system, a system for managing candidates in recruiting. Such systems help companies store, sort, and search resumes. Workday describes ATS as software for managing the hiring process, and Jobscan explains that formatting issues can interfere with proper resume parsing.
For the "Work Experience" section, this means three things.
First, use a standard section title: "Work Experience," "Professional Experience." Do not name the section creatively, such as "My Journey," "What I Did," or "Professional Adventures."
Second, use words from the vacancy. If the vacancy says "Google Ads," do not replace it with "paid advertising." If it says "customer support," do not just write "working with clients." In a piece on resume keywords, LinkedIn advises using exact terms from the job description, using simple formatting, and showing keywords in the context of achievements, not just as a list.
Third, avoid complex design in the resume itself: tables, columns, text boxes, icons, graphics. Jobscan writes that ATS does not always reliably read tables and columns, causing data to disappear or become scrambled.
Important: there is no confirmed universal formula that guarantees passing all ATS. Different systems work differently. Therefore, it is more accurate to talk not about a "secret ATS score," but about simple formatting, relevant keywords, and a clear description of experience.
How many bullets to write for one job
You don't need to describe everything you did. A resume is not a complete history of your workday. It is a selection of the most relevant evidence.
Work.ua advises providing sufficiently concrete points with results for each job, rather than a long description of routine. The Work.ua material suggests 4–6 points per job.
Practically, you can follow this:
For the most recent and relevant job — 4–6 strong points.
For a previous, but still important role — 3–5 points.
For old or less relevant experience — 1–3 points or a short description.
For irrelevant experience — keep only what shows transferable skills: customer service, process organization, sales, responsibility, analytics, communication, management.
Put the strongest points first. A recruiter is not obligated to read every line to the end. If the best result is hidden in the fifth point, it might just not work.
How to describe experience without loud numbers
Not everyone works in sales, marketing, or product, where it is easy to show percentages. But experience without numbers does not mean weak experience.
You can show:
scale of the task;
complexity of the context;
number of people or teams;
frequency of the process;
volume of work;
deadlines;
level of responsibility;
tools;
process improvements;
quality or stability of the result.
For example:
"Prepared technical documentation for API, which was used by frontend and QA teams during integration."
"Coordinated communication between the client, designer, and developer during the launch of the corporate website."
"Updated the knowledge base structure for the support team, reducing the number of repeated questions in the internal chat."
"Conducted a content audit on the site and removed duplicates, outdated pages, and irrelevant CTAs."
Such formulations do not exaggerate experience but give the reader an understanding: what exactly you did and why it mattered.
Typical mistakes in describing experience
The first mistake is writing only duties. "Responsible for sales" shows neither the level of result, nor the scale, nor the type of clients, nor your contribution.
The second is using general words without evidence. "Communicative," "stress-resistant," "responsible," "fast learner" work poorly if there is no example nearby. It is better to show the situation: "negotiated requirements between three teams," "conducted onboarding for 8 new employees," "processed client requests during peak load."
The third is writing sentences that are too long. A bullet point should be read quickly. If one point contains three different thoughts, it is better to split or shorten them.
The fourth is inserting keywords without meaning. ATS and recruiters need not just the words "SEO," "CRM," "Agile," "analytics," but the context: what you did with them and what result you achieved. LinkedIn advises showing keywords in the context of duties and achievements.
The fifth is exaggerating. If you write "increased sales by 200%," be prepared to explain over what period, from what base, with what actions, and how it was measured. Work.ua specifically reminds that you should not lie or exaggerate your own skills, because the truth may come out.
Examples: how to rewrite weak formulations
Was: "Worked with clients."
Became: "Consulted B2B clients on service integration, processing up to 30 requests per day in CRM."
Was: "Managed social media."
Became: "Developed a content plan for Instagram and Facebook for 3 months, increasing posting frequency to 5 posts per week."
Was: "Did advertising."
Became: "Launched campaigns in Google Ads for three product categories and lowered average CPA after keyword optimization."
Was: "Participated in website development."
Became: "Developed responsive components for the pricing page on React, improving content update speed."
Was: "Coordinated the team."
Became: "Coordinated the work of a designer, copywriter, and developer during the landing page launch, ensuring release before the advertising campaign start."
Was: "Prepared reports."
Became: "Automated weekly performance reports in Looker Studio, reducing manual data preparation for the marketing team."
How to make sure experience leads to an interview
A resume does not have to tell everything. Its task is to provide enough evidence so that the recruiter wants to ask questions. A strong point on a resume should easily turn into a story at an interview.
If the resume says: "Optimized onboarding flow and increased activation rate by 14%," at the interview you should be able to explain:
what the problem was;
what data you saw;
what solution you proposed;
what exactly you did;
who was involved;
how you measured the result;
what you would improve next time.
The STAR method — Situation, Task, Action, Result — is often used for answering behavioral questions at an interview. Indeed explains that STAR helps to structure the answer through the situation, task, action, and result.
Therefore, a good strategy is: every strong bullet on the resume should be a short version of a future STAR story. If you cannot explain a point orally, it is better to rewrite it more honestly and specifically.
Final check of the "Work Experience" section
Before sending the resume, reread each point and ask yourself a few questions.
Is it clear what exactly I did?
Is it visible in what context this happened?
Is there a result, number, scale, or other evidence?
Does this point match the vacancy?
Are there words from the job description here?
Does it sound like a job description?
Will I be able to explain this point at an interview?
If a point does not show a result, relevance, or scale — it should be rewritten or removed.
Strong experience on a resume is not a long list of tasks. It is a short set of evidence that you have already done similar work, understand the context of the role, and can provide measurable value. Such formulations help to pass the first selection, be understood by ATS, and give the recruiter a reason to invite you to an interview.