Resume Bullet Generator

The X-Y-Z formula

Accomplished [X] as measured by [Y] by doing [Z]. That is the whole thing. X is what changed, Y is the figure that proves it changed, and Z is the work you did to cause it. The shape is usually credited to Laszlo Bock, who ran People Operations at Google.

It works because each part answers the question the previous one raises. Say you improved something and a reader asks “by how much?” Give the number and they ask “how?” A bullet that answers all three in one line is finished. A bullet missing the number is a claim; a bullet missing the method is a coincidence.

The order can flip. “Cut report turnaround by six hours by automating the nightly close” and “Automated the nightly close, cutting report turnaround by six hours” carry the same three parts. Lead with whichever half is more impressive. That is why the generator hands you several arrangements rather than one.

Four rewrites, before and after

Every “before” here is a duty. Every “after” is the same fact with X, Y and Z made explicit.

“Responsible for” describes a job description, not a person. The rewrite keeps the same work but adds the figure (40%), the window (six months) and the method (a rebuilt calendar), so a reader can tell what you actually changed.

“Worked on” hides your contribution behind the team’s. Name the thing you owned and the number it moved. Shorter and more specific at the same time.

Money is the easiest unit to read. If you cannot name the total, name the share: “cut renewal costs 12%” is a real result. Notice the count in the method as well — three contracts is a second, free piece of evidence.

Time is a unit people forget. A before-and-after duration is often the clearest number you own, and you rarely need a system to look it up.

Finding your number

Most people believe their work was not measurable. Usually it was not measured, which is a different problem with an easy fix. Ask four questions:

• How many? Accounts, tickets, students, markets, releases, people trained.
• How much? Budget owned, revenue touched, spend removed, hours saved.
• How often? Weekly reports, monthly closes, daily shifts covered.
• How long? How long it took before, and how long it took after.

Round numbers are fine. Estimates are fine if you can explain how you got there. Numbers you cannot defend in an interview are not fine — the whole point of the figure is that it survives the follow-up question. When you are done, paste the finished resume into the resume checker to see how many of your bullets carry a metric, and use the summary generator for the paragraph at the top.

What gets thrown away before you see it

The generator writes up to eleven phrasings, checks them one at a time and stops once six have survived. A phrasing is only shown if all of this is true:

• It starts with a past-tense action verb from the list below.
• It contains at least one digit.
• It is 30 words or fewer.
• It contains no I, we, my or our.
• It contains no filler phrase — “responsible for”, “worked on”, “helped with”, “duties included” and about thirty more.
• It does not repeat a leading verb already used in the same set.
• It has no double spaces, no space before a comma, and does not end on a stray preposition.

The line under your results reports what happened: how many were checked, how many survived and what the rest failed on. If fewer than two survive, the tool names the input that caused it instead of printing something broken. Usually that means a pronoun or a filler phrase came in from your own wording, and the fix is one word long.