Verbs beat adjectives on a CV
Adjectives are claims. Verbs are events. When you write that a system was fast, robust, or mission critical, you are asking the reader to trust your opinion of your own work. When you write that a system was reduced, migrated, or renegotiated, you are giving them the telemetry. The job-hunt industry runs on adjectives because adjectives are easy to generate and impossible to index. Both the…
Adjectives are claims, while verbs represent events. When stating that a system was fast, robust, or mission critical, one is asking the reader to trust their opinion on their work. However, when describing a system as reduced, migrated, or renegotiated, the reader receives the telemetry. The job-hunt industry heavily relies on adjectives because they are easy to generate and hard to index.
Both automated parsers and human reviewers have to put in effort to verify an adjective, often leading to it being skipped. Parsers focus on event-oriented action words attached to technology or metrics, looking for whether one built, deployed, patched, or retired something. A CV filled with descriptions lacks relationship-building potential.
Instead, stating "Managed a complex cloud migration" provides only a blur, whereas "Migrated three legacy databases to Postgres under zero downtime" offers a clear timeline. Removing soft descriptors and placing actions in their proper place is crucial. Eliminate dynamic, passionate, and results-oriented language, leaving only the verbs that have survived the quarter.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
