Action verbs for your CV

Empty job titles can turn your CV into a dead duck. Job cultures vary, so a title might be hard to translate, or perhaps sound as if it came straight from the Bullshit Job Title Generator. Action verbs can help solve the problem.

Say you're a Sachbearbeiter/in at a company, trained as an industrial clerk. You're the person responsible for (or the official in charge of) a certain group of tasks in your company's operations. So what do you actually do? Chances are you enter data, process and expedite orders, prepare shipping documents, handle all transactions and track and optimize schedules. In purchasing, you compare offers, develop a network of suppliers and manage inventory. You'll probably handle more than 95 per cent of your correspondence by e-mail, but sometimes answer enquiries on the phone, especially to deal with problems. So your job has at least as much to do with people as it does with things.

Or perhaps you're a Referent/in with a college degree, working as an administrative officer in a public or private institution. A persönlicher Referent who reports to the director would be called an aide or assistant, but you're an advisor on the conceptual side with an area of expertise and responsibility, developing and contributing to strategic concepts by doing research or coordinating and overseeing studies. You may prepare or edit reports and give presentations. When the company implements new concepts, you might have to provide staff training.

The Spotlight 9/2010 feature How to write the perfect CV (see PDF here) is full of excellent tips. Before you go, review the action verbs used above in our case studies on the next pages.

Anne Hodgson