Mixing
Is it common to drop the pronoun “I†in resume?
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up vote
1
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favorite
There are recommendations to write your achievements without using "I". At first, I wrote my resume as:
"Have created ..." "Was responsible for ..." "Created something ..."
Now I heard that people don't use this style.
These are my questions:
Is it common to drop the pronoun "I" from resume? How can I drop it in the perfect tense and continuous tense?
Does this sentence "I bought potato and cooked it" work as well as "I have cooked potato"? Cooking food doesn't guarantee result, and I understand there is a perfect tense to express this.
As an alternative, is it correct to mix sentences as below?
"I have created ..." "Created something ..." "Collaborated with ... " "I was responsible for ..."
resume
edited Oct 20 '17 at 16:08
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
asked Feb 14 '16 at 13:41
Pavel
121
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
There are recommendations to write your achievements without using "I". At first, I wrote my resume as:
"Have created ..." "Was responsible for ..." "Created something ..."
Now I heard that people don't use this style.
These are my questions:
Is it common to drop the pronoun "I" from resume? How can I drop it in the perfect tense and continuous tense?
Does this sentence "I bought potato and cooked it" work as well as "I have cooked potato"? Cooking food doesn't guarantee result, and I understand there is a perfect tense to express this.
As an alternative, is it correct to mix sentences as below?
"I have created ..." "Created something ..." "Collaborated with ... " "I was responsible for ..."
resume
edited Oct 20 '17 at 16:08
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
asked Feb 14 '16 at 13:41
Pavel
121
4
People do indeed often write resumes in "telegraphic" style, dropping unnecessary words -- or ar least this is true in the US; you didn't say where you were located. Since English isn't your first language, I strongly recommend having someone who is more fluent review the resume to make sure it's clearly understandable. For the rest, those questions belong in the English Language Learners section of Stack Exchange.
– keshlam
Feb 14 '16 at 14:03
This might also be good for Engilsh Language Usage stack exchange. It seems a little obscure/specific of an issue for normal "English Language Learners". It's the kind of thing that native speakers learn about in writing or grammar classes and then have long forgotten how to explain properly.
– Brandin
Feb 15 '16 at 11:08
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
up vote
1
down vote
favorite
There are recommendations to write your achievements without using "I". At first, I wrote my resume as:
"Have created ..." "Was responsible for ..." "Created something ..."
Now I heard that people don't use this style.
These are my questions:
Is it common to drop the pronoun "I" from resume? How can I drop it in the perfect tense and continuous tense?
Does this sentence "I bought potato and cooked it" work as well as "I have cooked potato"? Cooking food doesn't guarantee result, and I understand there is a perfect tense to express this.
As an alternative, is it correct to mix sentences as below?
"I have created ..." "Created something ..." "Collaborated with ... " "I was responsible for ..."
resume
edited Oct 20 '17 at 16:08
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
asked Feb 14 '16 at 13:41
Pavel
121
There are recommendations to write your achievements without using "I". At first, I wrote my resume as:
"Have created ..." "Was responsible for ..." "Created something ..."
Now I heard that people don't use this style.
These are my questions:
Is it common to drop the pronoun "I" from resume? How can I drop it in the perfect tense and continuous tense?
Does this sentence "I bought potato and cooked it" work as well as "I have cooked potato"? Cooking food doesn't guarantee result, and I understand there is a perfect tense to express this.
As an alternative, is it correct to mix sentences as below?
"I have created ..." "Created something ..." "Collaborated with ... " "I was responsible for ..."
resume
edited Oct 20 '17 at 16:08
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
asked Feb 14 '16 at 13:41
Pavel
121
edited Oct 20 '17 at 16:08
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
edited Oct 20 '17 at 16:08
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
edited Oct 20 '17 at 16:08
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
43.6k25114163
asked Feb 14 '16 at 13:41
Pavel
121
asked Feb 14 '16 at 13:41
Pavel
121
asked Feb 14 '16 at 13:41
Pavel
121
121
4
People do indeed often write resumes in "telegraphic" style, dropping unnecessary words -- or ar least this is true in the US; you didn't say where you were located. Since English isn't your first language, I strongly recommend having someone who is more fluent review the resume to make sure it's clearly understandable. For the rest, those questions belong in the English Language Learners section of Stack Exchange.
– keshlam
Feb 14 '16 at 14:03
This might also be good for Engilsh Language Usage stack exchange. It seems a little obscure/specific of an issue for normal "English Language Learners". It's the kind of thing that native speakers learn about in writing or grammar classes and then have long forgotten how to explain properly.
– Brandin
Feb 15 '16 at 11:08
suggest improvements |Â
4
People do indeed often write resumes in "telegraphic" style, dropping unnecessary words -- or ar least this is true in the US; you didn't say where you were located. Since English isn't your first language, I strongly recommend having someone who is more fluent review the resume to make sure it's clearly understandable. For the rest, those questions belong in the English Language Learners section of Stack Exchange.
– keshlam
Feb 14 '16 at 14:03
This might also be good for Engilsh Language Usage stack exchange. It seems a little obscure/specific of an issue for normal "English Language Learners". It's the kind of thing that native speakers learn about in writing or grammar classes and then have long forgotten how to explain properly.
– Brandin
Feb 15 '16 at 11:08
4
4
People do indeed often write resumes in "telegraphic" style, dropping unnecessary words -- or ar least this is true in the US; you didn't say where you were located. Since English isn't your first language, I strongly recommend having someone who is more fluent review the resume to make sure it's clearly understandable. For the rest, those questions belong in the English Language Learners section of Stack Exchange.
– keshlam
Feb 14 '16 at 14:03
People do indeed often write resumes in "telegraphic" style, dropping unnecessary words -- or ar least this is true in the US; you didn't say where you were located. Since English isn't your first language, I strongly recommend having someone who is more fluent review the resume to make sure it's clearly understandable. For the rest, those questions belong in the English Language Learners section of Stack Exchange.
– keshlam
Feb 14 '16 at 14:03
This might also be good for Engilsh Language Usage stack exchange. It seems a little obscure/specific of an issue for normal "English Language Learners". It's the kind of thing that native speakers learn about in writing or grammar classes and then have long forgotten how to explain properly.
– Brandin
Feb 15 '16 at 11:08
This might also be good for Engilsh Language Usage stack exchange. It seems a little obscure/specific of an issue for normal "English Language Learners". It's the kind of thing that native speakers learn about in writing or grammar classes and then have long forgotten how to explain properly.
– Brandin
Feb 15 '16 at 11:08
suggest improvements |Â
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
up vote
7
down vote
The style used in resumes is more complicated than just dropping the "I" from the sentences. It's not a mechanical transformation like that; it's something more subtle that can be a challenge to explain to a non-native writer of English.
Start by writing the resume in complete sentences. Next, look for content-free phrases. For example "I am responsible for writing x" is "I write x", isn't it? You want action-y verbs like write, manage, create more than am, for example. Third, pick a tense - most people use past tense for jobs they have left and present tense for the job they hold at the moment. Fourth, once you have a consistent and compact set of sentences, if the sentence or clause starts with I, which it probably does, just start with the verb.
Buy and cook food, choose vendors, design menus, collaborate with owners to plan the year
Don't leave out "I" or "me" if they don't start the sentence.
Buy and cook food. Owners rely on me when they are away - one week in 4.
Notice there is more "telegraph-style" happening here - the word "the" is being left out as well as "I". It's a good idea to have a native speaker look it over for you to be sure you're leaving out the right words.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 18:09
Kate Gregory
104k40230331
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
Your resume should focus on your achievements. Hiring managers and technical leads can interview only a limited number of candidates. Your resume should convince them to invite you to an interview.
The style and grammar are important, but they are just a means to achieve the goal, not the goal by itself. Quantifiable achievements enrich a resume more than a perfectly grammatical sentence. Your hypothetical example would look better as:
Bought 10 kg potatoes, cooked them in 3 hours, which was served to 50 people.
Don't exaggerate the numbers to make your resume look good, however.
"I worked on this.", "I was responsible for that.", etc. don't sound impressive because they just tell that the candidate did the work assigned to him, which is the minimum expectation. Perfect grammar or absence of "I" doesn't matter. Nonetheless, the "I" in the resume is redundant because the reader already knows it is your resume, so drop it entirely. However, if your resume is otherwise impressive, no sane hiring manager will discard your resume just because of the "I".
That said though, avoid spelling and punctuation mistakes because being sloppy about your resume doesn't leave a good impression. Get your resume proofread by someone fluent in English, preferably someone who has reviewed a lot of resumes.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 17:21
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
Masked Man's answer is excellent and covers the really important things here.
To supplement that though regarding the specifics of using "I" this seems to be an individual, possibly cultural thing, I've had discussions with others when reviewing CVs where they have commented negatively on the use of "I" suggesting that it sounds like a school kid's "what I did on my summer holiday" report, the inference being that it made then thing of the candidate as young and immature. Personally I can see where they are coming from but I wouldn't consider it anywhere near significant enough for it to affect whether I progressed their application.
answered Oct 21 '17 at 8:05
motosubatsu
30.9k1580126
suggest improvements |Â
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3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
3 Answers
3
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
7
down vote
The style used in resumes is more complicated than just dropping the "I" from the sentences. It's not a mechanical transformation like that; it's something more subtle that can be a challenge to explain to a non-native writer of English.
Start by writing the resume in complete sentences. Next, look for content-free phrases. For example "I am responsible for writing x" is "I write x", isn't it? You want action-y verbs like write, manage, create more than am, for example. Third, pick a tense - most people use past tense for jobs they have left and present tense for the job they hold at the moment. Fourth, once you have a consistent and compact set of sentences, if the sentence or clause starts with I, which it probably does, just start with the verb.
Buy and cook food, choose vendors, design menus, collaborate with owners to plan the year
Don't leave out "I" or "me" if they don't start the sentence.
Buy and cook food. Owners rely on me when they are away - one week in 4.
Notice there is more "telegraph-style" happening here - the word "the" is being left out as well as "I". It's a good idea to have a native speaker look it over for you to be sure you're leaving out the right words.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 18:09
Kate Gregory
104k40230331
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
7
down vote
The style used in resumes is more complicated than just dropping the "I" from the sentences. It's not a mechanical transformation like that; it's something more subtle that can be a challenge to explain to a non-native writer of English.
Start by writing the resume in complete sentences. Next, look for content-free phrases. For example "I am responsible for writing x" is "I write x", isn't it? You want action-y verbs like write, manage, create more than am, for example. Third, pick a tense - most people use past tense for jobs they have left and present tense for the job they hold at the moment. Fourth, once you have a consistent and compact set of sentences, if the sentence or clause starts with I, which it probably does, just start with the verb.
Buy and cook food, choose vendors, design menus, collaborate with owners to plan the year
Don't leave out "I" or "me" if they don't start the sentence.
Buy and cook food. Owners rely on me when they are away - one week in 4.
Notice there is more "telegraph-style" happening here - the word "the" is being left out as well as "I". It's a good idea to have a native speaker look it over for you to be sure you're leaving out the right words.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 18:09
Kate Gregory
104k40230331
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
7
down vote
up vote
7
down vote
The style used in resumes is more complicated than just dropping the "I" from the sentences. It's not a mechanical transformation like that; it's something more subtle that can be a challenge to explain to a non-native writer of English.
Start by writing the resume in complete sentences. Next, look for content-free phrases. For example "I am responsible for writing x" is "I write x", isn't it? You want action-y verbs like write, manage, create more than am, for example. Third, pick a tense - most people use past tense for jobs they have left and present tense for the job they hold at the moment. Fourth, once you have a consistent and compact set of sentences, if the sentence or clause starts with I, which it probably does, just start with the verb.
Buy and cook food, choose vendors, design menus, collaborate with owners to plan the year
Don't leave out "I" or "me" if they don't start the sentence.
Buy and cook food. Owners rely on me when they are away - one week in 4.
Notice there is more "telegraph-style" happening here - the word "the" is being left out as well as "I". It's a good idea to have a native speaker look it over for you to be sure you're leaving out the right words.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 18:09
Kate Gregory
104k40230331
The style used in resumes is more complicated than just dropping the "I" from the sentences. It's not a mechanical transformation like that; it's something more subtle that can be a challenge to explain to a non-native writer of English.
Start by writing the resume in complete sentences. Next, look for content-free phrases. For example "I am responsible for writing x" is "I write x", isn't it? You want action-y verbs like write, manage, create more than am, for example. Third, pick a tense - most people use past tense for jobs they have left and present tense for the job they hold at the moment. Fourth, once you have a consistent and compact set of sentences, if the sentence or clause starts with I, which it probably does, just start with the verb.
Buy and cook food, choose vendors, design menus, collaborate with owners to plan the year
Don't leave out "I" or "me" if they don't start the sentence.
Buy and cook food. Owners rely on me when they are away - one week in 4.
Notice there is more "telegraph-style" happening here - the word "the" is being left out as well as "I". It's a good idea to have a native speaker look it over for you to be sure you're leaving out the right words.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 18:09
Kate Gregory
104k40230331
answered Feb 14 '16 at 18:09
Kate Gregory
104k40230331
answered Feb 14 '16 at 18:09
Kate Gregory
104k40230331
answered Feb 14 '16 at 18:09
Kate Gregory
104k40230331
104k40230331
suggest improvements |Â
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
Your resume should focus on your achievements. Hiring managers and technical leads can interview only a limited number of candidates. Your resume should convince them to invite you to an interview.
The style and grammar are important, but they are just a means to achieve the goal, not the goal by itself. Quantifiable achievements enrich a resume more than a perfectly grammatical sentence. Your hypothetical example would look better as:
Bought 10 kg potatoes, cooked them in 3 hours, which was served to 50 people.
Don't exaggerate the numbers to make your resume look good, however.
"I worked on this.", "I was responsible for that.", etc. don't sound impressive because they just tell that the candidate did the work assigned to him, which is the minimum expectation. Perfect grammar or absence of "I" doesn't matter. Nonetheless, the "I" in the resume is redundant because the reader already knows it is your resume, so drop it entirely. However, if your resume is otherwise impressive, no sane hiring manager will discard your resume just because of the "I".
That said though, avoid spelling and punctuation mistakes because being sloppy about your resume doesn't leave a good impression. Get your resume proofread by someone fluent in English, preferably someone who has reviewed a lot of resumes.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 17:21
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
Your resume should focus on your achievements. Hiring managers and technical leads can interview only a limited number of candidates. Your resume should convince them to invite you to an interview.
The style and grammar are important, but they are just a means to achieve the goal, not the goal by itself. Quantifiable achievements enrich a resume more than a perfectly grammatical sentence. Your hypothetical example would look better as:
Bought 10 kg potatoes, cooked them in 3 hours, which was served to 50 people.
Don't exaggerate the numbers to make your resume look good, however.
"I worked on this.", "I was responsible for that.", etc. don't sound impressive because they just tell that the candidate did the work assigned to him, which is the minimum expectation. Perfect grammar or absence of "I" doesn't matter. Nonetheless, the "I" in the resume is redundant because the reader already knows it is your resume, so drop it entirely. However, if your resume is otherwise impressive, no sane hiring manager will discard your resume just because of the "I".
That said though, avoid spelling and punctuation mistakes because being sloppy about your resume doesn't leave a good impression. Get your resume proofread by someone fluent in English, preferably someone who has reviewed a lot of resumes.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 17:21
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
up vote
1
down vote
Your resume should focus on your achievements. Hiring managers and technical leads can interview only a limited number of candidates. Your resume should convince them to invite you to an interview.
The style and grammar are important, but they are just a means to achieve the goal, not the goal by itself. Quantifiable achievements enrich a resume more than a perfectly grammatical sentence. Your hypothetical example would look better as:
Bought 10 kg potatoes, cooked them in 3 hours, which was served to 50 people.
Don't exaggerate the numbers to make your resume look good, however.
"I worked on this.", "I was responsible for that.", etc. don't sound impressive because they just tell that the candidate did the work assigned to him, which is the minimum expectation. Perfect grammar or absence of "I" doesn't matter. Nonetheless, the "I" in the resume is redundant because the reader already knows it is your resume, so drop it entirely. However, if your resume is otherwise impressive, no sane hiring manager will discard your resume just because of the "I".
That said though, avoid spelling and punctuation mistakes because being sloppy about your resume doesn't leave a good impression. Get your resume proofread by someone fluent in English, preferably someone who has reviewed a lot of resumes.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 17:21
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
Your resume should focus on your achievements. Hiring managers and technical leads can interview only a limited number of candidates. Your resume should convince them to invite you to an interview.
The style and grammar are important, but they are just a means to achieve the goal, not the goal by itself. Quantifiable achievements enrich a resume more than a perfectly grammatical sentence. Your hypothetical example would look better as:
Bought 10 kg potatoes, cooked them in 3 hours, which was served to 50 people.
Don't exaggerate the numbers to make your resume look good, however.
"I worked on this.", "I was responsible for that.", etc. don't sound impressive because they just tell that the candidate did the work assigned to him, which is the minimum expectation. Perfect grammar or absence of "I" doesn't matter. Nonetheless, the "I" in the resume is redundant because the reader already knows it is your resume, so drop it entirely. However, if your resume is otherwise impressive, no sane hiring manager will discard your resume just because of the "I".
That said though, avoid spelling and punctuation mistakes because being sloppy about your resume doesn't leave a good impression. Get your resume proofread by someone fluent in English, preferably someone who has reviewed a lot of resumes.
answered Feb 14 '16 at 17:21
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
edited Oct 20 '17 at 15:54
answered Feb 14 '16 at 17:21
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
answered Feb 14 '16 at 17:21
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
answered Feb 14 '16 at 17:21
Masked Man♦
43.6k25114163
43.6k25114163
suggest improvements |Â
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
Masked Man's answer is excellent and covers the really important things here.
To supplement that though regarding the specifics of using "I" this seems to be an individual, possibly cultural thing, I've had discussions with others when reviewing CVs where they have commented negatively on the use of "I" suggesting that it sounds like a school kid's "what I did on my summer holiday" report, the inference being that it made then thing of the candidate as young and immature. Personally I can see where they are coming from but I wouldn't consider it anywhere near significant enough for it to affect whether I progressed their application.
answered Oct 21 '17 at 8:05
motosubatsu
30.9k1580126
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
Masked Man's answer is excellent and covers the really important things here.
To supplement that though regarding the specifics of using "I" this seems to be an individual, possibly cultural thing, I've had discussions with others when reviewing CVs where they have commented negatively on the use of "I" suggesting that it sounds like a school kid's "what I did on my summer holiday" report, the inference being that it made then thing of the candidate as young and immature. Personally I can see where they are coming from but I wouldn't consider it anywhere near significant enough for it to affect whether I progressed their application.
answered Oct 21 '17 at 8:05
motosubatsu
30.9k1580126
suggest improvements |Â
up vote
1
down vote
up vote
1
down vote
Masked Man's answer is excellent and covers the really important things here.
To supplement that though regarding the specifics of using "I" this seems to be an individual, possibly cultural thing, I've had discussions with others when reviewing CVs where they have commented negatively on the use of "I" suggesting that it sounds like a school kid's "what I did on my summer holiday" report, the inference being that it made then thing of the candidate as young and immature. Personally I can see where they are coming from but I wouldn't consider it anywhere near significant enough for it to affect whether I progressed their application.
answered Oct 21 '17 at 8:05
motosubatsu
30.9k1580126
Masked Man's answer is excellent and covers the really important things here.
To supplement that though regarding the specifics of using "I" this seems to be an individual, possibly cultural thing, I've had discussions with others when reviewing CVs where they have commented negatively on the use of "I" suggesting that it sounds like a school kid's "what I did on my summer holiday" report, the inference being that it made then thing of the candidate as young and immature. Personally I can see where they are coming from but I wouldn't consider it anywhere near significant enough for it to affect whether I progressed their application.
answered Oct 21 '17 at 8:05
motosubatsu
30.9k1580126
answered Oct 21 '17 at 8:05
motosubatsu
30.9k1580126
answered Oct 21 '17 at 8:05
motosubatsu
30.9k1580126
answered Oct 21 '17 at 8:05
motosubatsu
30.9k1580126
30.9k1580126
suggest improvements |Â
suggest improvements |Â
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4
People do indeed often write resumes in "telegraphic" style, dropping unnecessary words -- or ar least this is true in the US; you didn't say where you were located. Since English isn't your first language, I strongly recommend having someone who is more fluent review the resume to make sure it's clearly understandable. For the rest, those questions belong in the English Language Learners section of Stack Exchange.
– keshlam
Feb 14 '16 at 14:03
This might also be good for Engilsh Language Usage stack exchange. It seems a little obscure/specific of an issue for normal "English Language Learners". It's the kind of thing that native speakers learn about in writing or grammar classes and then have long forgotten how to explain properly.
– Brandin
Feb 15 '16 at 11:08