What is a verb? A verb is a doing word, an action word. Doesn't that definition transport you straight back to primary school, chalk dust, a teacher's stern glare, the collective dread of being asked to spell it out loud? Unless, of course, you were a backbencher, in which case you were too busy passing notes to absorb any of this the first time round. No worries. Sit up straight and follow teacher Sammy; we're diving into an English class you did not see coming, and this time there's a job at the end of it instead of a test.
Roll call: attendance is "responsible for," again
"Responsible for managing a team of five." Read that sentence again and notice how much it manages to say while actually telling you almost nothing. Did the team grow under this person, shrink, stage a small mutiny, win an award? No idea. "Responsible for" is the CV equivalent of a shrug in professional clothing, technically an answer if the teacher calls on you unprepared, functionally worth zero marks.
A quick word before the teacher gets carried away with statistics
Every article on this topic, and there are hundreds, likes to open with a specific-sounding statistic: action verbs boost interview requests by 40%, or 140%, or some other suspiciously round-yet-precise figure, usually attributed to "a study" that, much like a dog eating homework, cannot actually be produced. I went looking. I couldn't verify a single one of them against anything resembling a real, checkable source; they trace back to marketing content from resume-building companies, repeated by other resume-building companies, until the number just felt true from sheer repetition- the academic equivalent of a rumour that started in JHS and somehow made it into a textbook by SHS.
What holds up consistently across university career centers and recruiters who aren't trying to sell you a resume scanner is the underlying, unquantified point: passive phrases like "responsible for," "helped with," and "worked on" genuinely read as weaker than a specific action verb paired with a specific result. Nobody's put a trustworthy number on exactly how much weaker. However, enough people who read CVs for a living agree it matters, and unlike the fake statistic, you can cite this one without your supervisor giving you a look.
Grammar recap, briefly, then we move on.
Class, quick refresher, because apparently we need it: a verb needs an object and, where possible, a result trailing behind it like a well-behaved younger sibling. "Worked on the marketing campaign" tells a recruiter you were somewhere in the vicinity of a marketing campaign, possibly holding a clipboard, possibly just near the coffee machine when the campaign was discussed. Did you design it, execute it, approve it, or hand out flyers at the entrance? The sentence doesn't say, and a recruiter reading fifty CVs in an afternoon isn't going to raise their hand and politely ask for clarification on your behalf. They'll assume the smallest possible contribution and move to the next desk.
Today's vocabulary list: copy this down
Suppose you led something: directed, spearheaded, championed, orchestrated, mobilised. These claim ownership at the front of the class; use them only where you genuinely stood there. "Spearheaded" a project you were the fourth person on tends to unravel the moment someone asks a single follow-up question.
Suppose you built or created something: developed, engineered, designed, established, launched. Precise and checkable, exactly the homework a vague verb never bothered to hand in.
Suppose you improved something that already existed: streamlined, optimised, overhauled, revamped, accelerated. Pair these with a number wherever you actually have one: "streamlined the onboarding process" passes; "streamlined onboarding, cutting new-hire ramp time from six weeks to three" gets the gold star.
If you researched or analysed something: investigated, evaluated, diagnosed, forecasted, audited. These signal thinking, not just doing, the difference between the student who actually understood the topic and the one who just memorised the summary the night before.
Suppose you persuaded or negotiated something: secured, negotiated, influenced, converted, resolved. Words that make clear an outcome existed, not merely an attempt that fizzled out somewhere in the middle, unfinished, like most group assignments.
The words that get you sent to detention
Beyond "responsible for," a handful of others show up constantly and drain the sentence the same way: "helped with," "assisted in," "participated in," "worked on," "was involved in." None of these is wrong occasionally. After all, plenty of real contributions are genuinely supporting ones, but stack five of them down a single CV, and you've written the profile of a candidate who apparently only ever stood near things while they happened, present for attendance, absent for participation.
The trick question nobody sees coming
Picking a strong verb and then not following it with anything specific is the resume equivalent of raising your hand with total confidence and then saying nothing useful once called on. "Spearheaded initiatives" is barely an improvement on "responsible for tasks"; it just swapped one vague word for a fancier, blazer-wearing vague word. A strong verb needs a specific object and, ideally, a measurable result trailing right behind it. The verb opens the sentence with confidence. The rest of the sentence still has to actually do the convincing, or the whole thing collapses like an answer you clearly guessed.
Class dismissed, but one more thing
If your CV currently reads more like a list of duties than a list of results, homework copied but never actually understood, that's exactly the kind of line-by-line rewrite Jade Consult does with clients before anything goes out the door. This is the one time your teacher is allowed to do your homework, so choose wisely. All the best in your job search, class dismissed!