Writing good bullets
The builder scores your bullets and flags weak ones. What it is actually measuring, and how to fix the flags it raises.
Bullets are where a resume is won or lost, and they are the part most people write worst - a list of duties rather than a record of what changed because you were there.
What the checklist flags#
The Improve room runs a set of checks as you write. The ones you will meet most:
| Flag | What it wants |
|---|---|
| Summary too long | A summary is three or four lines. Longer and it is read as an essay and skipped. |
| Missing email / phone / LinkedIn | A recruiter who cannot contact you does not chase it. |
| Contact details wrap | Your contact line is spilling onto a second line, which looks broken. |
| Skills unmapped | Your skills are one undifferentiated list rather than grouped. |
| Longer than target | See making it fit. |
| Not single column | Two-column layouts can confuse parsers. See the ATS check. |
What makes a bullet score well#
- Start with what you did, in a verb. "Rebuilt", "cut", "shipped" - not "responsible for".
- Say what changed, with a number where one exists. "Cut checkout errors by 40%" is a claim somebody can ask about; "improved checkout reliability" is not.
- Keep it to one or two lines. A bullet that wraps to four is a paragraph pretending.
- Be specific about your part. "Led a team of four" and "was on a team of four" are different facts and interviewers ask which one it was.
If you cannot find a number#
Not every job has metrics, and inventing them is worse than not having them. What works instead:
- Scale. "Across 12 markets", "for 400 daily users".
- Before and after. "Replaced a manual weekly process with a scheduled job."
- Difficulty. "Migrated the payment rail with no scheduled downtime."
When you are stuck#
The Sharpen bullets and Impact Interview assists exist for exactly this - the second asks you questions about a role and drafts bullets from your answers, which works better than staring at an empty field. Both cost credits; see improving with AI.
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