How to Optimise Work Experience in Resume Writing (2023)

How to Write a Compelling Work Experience Resume Section

A resume work experience section can make or break your chances of landing a dream job.

You’re likely to breeze through other areas of your resume but find the work experience section challenging.

Perhaps you fail to figure out anything worth mentioning or remember anything you did. But this doesn’t have to be the case.

So, how do you write a resume work experience section that stands out?

There’s no doubt you have the necessary skills to get the position.

Still, your prospective employer will need to prove that you’re worth the job offer.

And this is where your resume work experience section will come into play.

Most job seekers struggle to write a concise and compelling resume work experience section.

This section in your resume should clearly and concisely showcase that you have the necessary qualifications.

So, use the section to portray yourself as alikableperson that the employer must invite for interview.

Optimising Work Experience in Resume Writing: Expert Advice

The work experience section in one critical component for adding youressential skillsfor your resume to be effective.

It should be compelling enough to grab the prospective employer’s attention and prove that you’re the right candidate.

Make this section relevant to the job you’re applying for and accurately highlight your accomplishments.

Also, ensure you show the value you can bring to the company if offered the job.

But don’t worry if you find writing the work experience section challenging.

In this article, we’ll give you eight tips on how to write a resume work experience section that stands out from the rest.

So, let’s get rolling, shall we?

Introduce Your Experience

The hiring manager will need to learn about your professional experiences.

And since the first impression matters a lot, you should introduce your experiences compellingly.

Also, make it easy for the hiring manager to get the information they’re looking for by listing experience in reverse chronological order.

Here are some of the things to include when introducing your experience.

Organisations You Worked for and Their Locations

Mention companies you worked for and where they were.

Start with the most recent company, followed by the next most recent.

And to keep everything relevant, include companies you’ve worked for in the last ten years.

Note that incorporating companies that serve the same interests as the one you’re applying for will increase your chances of landing the interview.

When writing about locations of the companies, mention the towns or states where they were.

Employment Dates

Indicate when you started working for each organisation and when you stopped.

The best way to include employment dates is by using the month-year format.

For example,
Jan 2018 – Sept 2021

January 2018 – September 2021

01/2018 – 09/2021

If you have several gaps in your work experience, explain briefly why.

Job Titles

Your prospective employer needs to know your job titles in each company you’ve included.

If you want to stand out from other job hunters, provide different job titles relevant to the one you’re applying for if that was your situation.

In that case, your employer will know you have the various necessary skills after working in different positions.

Be Honest About Your Job History

Everything you include in the work experience section must be factual.

Whether it’s the companies you’ve worked for, locations of these companies, or dates of employment, everything should be factually correct.

Honesty is one of the soft skills hiring managers will look for when recruiting.

You don’t want to get embarrassed when your interviewers note that you lied in a given section.

Also, you may tarnish all the skills and accomplishments you’ve worked so hard to earn by being dishonest.

Include Strong Action Verbs

Your word choice matters a lot when writing work experience in a resume. The idea here is to make your prospective employer visualise your contributions.

Use strong action verbs to introduce your duties, responsibilities, or accomplishments. Also, ensure you vary action verbs to avoid all your descriptions sounding the same.

These are some of the action verbs you might consider using in your resume work experience section:

• supervised
• assisted
• adapted
• built
• cooperated
• exchanged
• implemented
• awarded
• fostered

For more action words, see our list of 250+ action verbs for your resume.

When introducing ongoing activities, use the present tense.

Use past tense to introduce activities in which you’re no longer involved.

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List Accomplishments from Previous Jobs

Listing your duties and responsibilities in your previous companies is not enough.

To write a resume work experience section that lands you the interview, you must mention a few accomplishments or achievements.

While the prospective employer will know what you did after listing your duties and responsibilities, they’ll also want to know if there were accomplishments.

If you made any positive impact or contribution to the company, you already have your ace in the hole.

However, ensure that the accomplishments you include are relevant to the new position you’re applying for.

With relevant achievements, your hiring manager can rest assured that you can deliver meaningful results to the company.

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Use Numbers and Percentages

When you use numbers in writing, they have a way of attracting your audience’s attention.

You can apply this when writing your resume work experience section.

You can quantify your responsibilities and successes from your previous positions.

Here, you can use numbers, percentages, and currency values.

Note that you should spell out every number below 10 and write in symbols every number above 10.

Quantifying your successes is something to be proud of.

When you include them, the hiring manager will know that you can bring such achievements to their company.

For example, you can quantify the following:

• the number or percentage of files you organised
• people you managed
• clients you acquired within a given period
• client retention, client referrals, or client satisfaction

Mention Any Awards, Honors, or Accolades

If you have any awards, honors, or accolades you received during your past employment, you can include them.

They show the accomplishments you made working for other companies.

Including awards, honors, and accolades gives the hiring manager a better idea of what you can accomplish in your field of work if they give you the opportunity.

The thing is awards, honors, or accolades don’t have to be shiny.

Some of the professional awards you can put in your resume work experience section include:

• Employee of the month awards
• Leadership awards
• Innovation awards
• Top performer awards
• Volunteering awards

Ensure you include the title of your award, the year awarded, who gave you the award, and why you won the prize.

These awards can help increase the chances of landing the interview faster than your competitors, who don’t include any awards.

List a Few Skills You Developed

You won’t land that dream job without proving you have the necessary skills.

By listing some of your best skills, the prospective recruiter will know you can succeed in your position.

Often, job seekers find it difficult to identify the skills needed to include.

To make it easier, assess your achievements or strengths that coworkers recognise.

Ensure you include a mix of hard and soft skills.

Every type of job will have a set of technical skills.

These skills are more specialised and are often measurable.

Some of the hard skills you might include are:

• Data analysis
• Mathematics
• Project management
• Computer software and application knowledge
• Writing skills
• Calendar management
• Shipping
• Referral marketing
• Contract negotiation
• Lead prospecting, among others

On the other hand, soft skills (people skills or social skills) come naturally or are strengthened over time.

You can apply soft skills in any job. Some of the top soft skills to include are:

• Problem-solving
• Critical thinking
• Flexibility
• Communication skills
• Teamwork
• Creativity
• Organisation skills
• Attention to detail
• Responsibility, among others

For a comprehensive list, see our 24 categories of soft skills you can choose from for your resume.

Explain Why Your Experience Makes You the Perfect Candidate

Your prospective employer will go through your resume work experience section asking the question, “What do you have to offer my company?”

Most jobseekers think that listing their responsibilities, skills, and achievements will make them stand out.

The fact is the hiring manager is looking for an employee who’ll fill a gap and solve the current problem.

After highlighting your responsibilities, accomplishments, and best skills, you can go further to prove you’re the right candidate.

The good thing is, you have already mentioned that you worked elsewhere and made a few achievements.

You can use this chance to clear any doubts by stating that you have all it takes to be the right candidate.

Use your previous successes and best skills to elaborate that you will do everything in your capacity to make such contributions if offered the job.

Final Thoughts

You now have the best tips to write a resume work experience section that stands out.

After verifying that you provided the necessary information, you can head over to other areas of your resume.

But before that, ensure you conclude your work experience section with a sentence that summarises how well-equipped you are for the job.

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