When you are applying for a job in the healthcare industry, it is especially important to use strong action verbs to describe your experience. Action verbs help your accomplishments stand out, and tell recruiters exactly what you accomplished at your previous roles.

It's a good idea to use action verbs that highlight your medical expertise — words like Diagnosed, Computed — as well as verbs that specifically show your ability to interact with patients, like Treated, Cared for, or Advised.

Action Verbs To Show Your Healthcare Experience:

We've compiled a lot more action verbs by job titles below.

How To Use Action Verbs On Your Resume

To show you how to use these action verbs in your resume, see this infographic for reference. You'll note that each bullet point uses strong action verbs, with a specific description of the task that was accomplished.

Action Verbs For Clinical Research Roles

Action verbs are a powerful way to frame your achievements and experience effectively. They can be used to make your abilities look diverse and your achievements look impressive. For a clinical researcher, you need your action verbs to show that you are skilled in multiple stages of the research process. They also need to highlight your successes and show recruiters that you work well in teams and that your work has borne fruit.

This is a sample of action verbs that can be used to elevate your resume. Use those that apply most to your experience.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Clinical Research Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Pharmacy Technician Roles

Action verbs are useful tools to frame your experience section. They point to the tasks you have completed and also the skills that are relevant to this position. This position requires you to show both technical skills and experience, and also customer-facing experience. For technical skills, some useful action verbs may include ‘certified’, ‘examined’, and ‘processed.’ Customer-facing action verbs may include ‘educated’, and ‘advised.’

Here is a list of action verbs that we found to be particularly effective for this position. 

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Pharmacy Technician Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Nursing Roles

You probably know that it’s important to focus your bullet points on your accomplishments. But how? Frame your achievements in a positive light by using strong action verbs at the start of each sentence. Structuring your bullet points this way emphasizes what you actually did and avoids listing bullet points that read more like a job description.

In addition to technical skills and medical know-how, nurses need a lot of transferable skills — think qualities like leadership, communication, empathy, and resilience. The best way to show that you have these qualities is through your choice of action verbs. If you’re applying for an entry-level nursing assistant role, you might want to emphasize your ability to follow instructions and work as part of a team, so choose verbs like Assisted or Prepared. If you’re looking for a more senior role, highlight your leadership potential with verbs like Implemented or Oversaw.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Nursing Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Medical Technologist Roles

Action verbs shape an applicant's experience. For a medical technologist position, your action verbs should reflect the different functions of your job, which include preparing patients for tests, performing tests, analyzing results, and more. 

You will also want to emphasize how efficient you are and how you have saved the hospital time and money from your efficiency. Action verbs that could work for this include, ‘streamlined’ and ‘saved’. Here is a list of effective action verbs for this position that you can use.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Medical Technologist Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Dental Assistant Roles

Dental assistants are expected to be versatile in their ability to assist both physicians and patients, so selecting a range of action verbs to utilize in your resume will help showcase your experience. Along with leading your bullet points with strong action verbs when appropriate, you should work them into the body of the accomplishment as added emphasis.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Dental Assistant Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Case Manager Roles

You know the importance of focusing on your accomplishments, but do you know the best way to do it? By using strong resume action verbs! Starting each bullet point with an action verb enables you to frame your accomplishments in a positive light and keeps the spotlight on what you actually achieved — not just what you were told to do.

Want to convince a hiring manager how well you work with patients? Focus on using action verbs like Cared or Assisted. Need to emphasize your organizational skills? Choose Implemented, Facilitated, or Arranged. And if you’re looking to take the next step and want to highlight your leadership and initiative, verbs like Improved, Oversaw, and Increased may be what you’re looking for.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Case Manager Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Respiratory Therapist Roles

Here are some strong Respiratory Therapist action verbs you can use to impress hiring managers:

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Respiratory Therapist Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Therapist Roles

Strong action verbs help recruiters understand your role in specific tasks. Therapist resumes should use action verbs that are relevant to the therapy process. Action verbs like "Treated", "Analyzed" or “Formulated" are examples of strong action verbs for this profession.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Therapist Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Quality Control Roles

Using the appropriate action verbs is one of the best ways to persuade your potential employers. They can help you describe your accomplishments, responsibilities, and skills precisely. This will improve their perspective of you because you’ll look accountable, reliable, and authoritative. 

If you’re having trouble finding the right action verbs for your quality control resume, take a look below. We have included some relevant action verbs to accentuate your quality control skills and expertise. 

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Quality Control Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Care Coordinator Roles

A care coordinator needs to be a good manager/leader and good healthcare professional. Highlight both functions using strong action verbs. For example, using verbs like ‘led’ ‘coordinated’ and ‘trained’ are all strong action verbs that point to your leadership capabilities. 

Here is a list of action verbs to help you highlight the dualistic functions of your job. Using action verbs like these will show recruiters your balanced skill set and previous experience.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Care Coordinator Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Occupational Therapist Roles

Action verbs help effectively frame your accomplishments. They allow recruiters to skim through your resume and get an idea of your experience and capabilities. They are therefore an important part of your resume that you should pay particular attention to. As an occupational therapist, you should use action verbs that indicate your experience effectively performing the tasks required of you.

Here are some action verbs that are especially effective for your position. Use them to elevate your resume and catch recruiters’ attention.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Occupational Therapist Resume Guide.

Action Verbs For Social Worker Roles

Social work is known for being a demanding, active, and dynamic role. This is why you need to use these action words to begin sentences on your resume, specifically for work experience. Here are some examples of effective action verbs you can use to write your social worker resume. Social workers engage, collaborate, and empathize with people and human suffering which calls for action verbs that portray their humanity, emotional capacity, and work ethic.

Relevant Examples Using Action Verbs

If you'd like a deeper dive into this role, read the full Social Worker Resume Guide.

Get a free resume review: Find out if your action verbs are strong enough.

As a next step, I'd recommend going through each of your resume's verbs and improving each one with stronger action verbs. The most effective way to do that is by uploading your resume to tool below. It'll tell you which parts of your resume need work, so you can improve them before a recruiter rejects you for them.

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