Tense, tone and writing style – Page 2

Decide your style rules first, then check the whole resume against them in one pass. Small inconsistencies are easier to catch when you look for one thing at a time.

Check these, one at a time:

• Tense: past for old roles, present for ongoing duties.
• Dates: the same format everywhere.
• Spelling variety: British or American.
• Punctuation at the end of bullets.
• Capitalisation of headings and job titles.
• Number format: digits, commas in large numbers.
• Locations: "Dubai, UAE" style for all entries.

A builder template keeps fonts and spacing consistent automatically, but wording choices are still yours to check.

It helps to write your choices down as a short personal style sheet before you start, for example "British spelling, ‘Mar 2021 – Present’, no full stops on bullets". Use the same sheet for your cover letter, so both documents look like they came from the same careful writer.

Use short sentences, common words and a fixed bullet pattern. Simple English is clearer for every reader, including native speakers.

Tips:

• Follow one pattern for bullets: verb, what you did, result. Example: "Checked incoming goods against orders, reducing delivery errors."
• Use words you would use comfortably in an interview.
• Avoid long phrases copied from templates if you are unsure what they mean.
• Use a spell-checker set to the right English variety.
• Ask a fluent reader to check grammar, especially articles ("a", "the") and prepositions.

Clear, correct, simple language often reads as more professional than complex wording with mistakes.

Better to avoid them in a resume for international employers. They are common in some regional varieties of English, but readers from other regions may find them unclear or informal.

Simple replacements:

• "Do the needful" becomes "take the necessary action" or simply describe the action.
• "Revert back" (meaning reply) becomes "reply" or "respond".
• "Prepone" becomes "bring forward".
• "Updation" becomes "updating" or "update".
• "Kindly find attached" belongs in an email, not a resume.

Your resume may be read by people from many countries, especially in the Gulf. Neutral international English keeps your meaning clear to all of them.

Either style is fine; just use it consistently. The Oxford comma is the comma before "and" in a list: "Excel, Power BI, and SQL" with it, "Excel, Power BI and SQL" without.

General patterns:

• American style guides more often use it.
• British writing more often leaves it out, except where it prevents confusion.

Add it whenever a list would otherwise be unclear, for example "Trained staff in sales, customer service, and health and safety." Without the comma, it is harder to tell where the last item starts. Nobody will reject a resume over this, but consistency shows care.

Use a consistent format with the currency code or symbol and digits, and choose the currency the reader will understand. For international applications, a currency code is clearer than a symbol shared by several countries.

Tips:

• Put the code before the number, with a space, and use the same style every time.
• Use "K" or "million" consistently for large amounts, for example "1.5 million" rather than mixing "1,500,000" and "1.5M".
• If you worked in another country, keep the original currency or convert it, but say which you did.
• Only state budgets or savings you can explain and that are not confidential.

Write the number accurately; round only in an obvious way, such as "over 2 million" for a figure just above it.

Use "and" in sentences and bullets, and keep "&" only where it is part of an official name or a very short heading. The ampersand can look casual or rushed in running text.

Examples:

• Fine: "Procter & Gamble", "Research & Development" if that is the department's official name.
• Better as "and": "Managed budgets and schedules", not "Managed budgets & schedules".

If you use "&" in section headings to save space, such as "Education & Certifications", use it in all similar headings. Consistency matters more than the choice itself.

No, for almost every job. Emojis and exclamation marks make a resume look informal, and some symbols may not display or copy correctly in applicant tracking systems or other software.

Keep to plain text:

• Use words instead of symbols: "and" instead of "+", "about" instead of "~".
• Use simple bullet points supplied by your template.
• Write your contact details as text rather than relying only on phone or email icons.

The only common exception is a highly creative role where a playful design is part of what you are showing, and even then the text itself should stay professional. Enthusiasm is better shown through what you achieved than through punctuation.

Use the present tense for who you are and what you do now, and the past tense for specific achievements. Most summaries are written in present tense with implied first person.

Example: "Civil engineer with nine years in infrastructure projects across the UAE. Specialise in road and drainage design. Delivered the drainage package for a major residential community on time and within budget."

Notice how the first two sentences describe the present, while the last describes a finished result. That mix is natural and correct. Avoid writing the whole summary in the future tense, such as "will bring strong skills", which sounds like an objective rather than a summary.

Use the present tense for activities you are still doing, just like a current job, and use "Present" in the dates.

Example:
"Volunteer Tutor, Bright Futures Community Centre (2022–Present)

• Tutor three secondary students in maths each week.
• Designed a set of practice worksheets now used by other volunteers."

The second bullet is past tense because the worksheets are finished. This is the same logic as any current role: ongoing duties in present tense, completed results in past tense. If the activity has stopped, switch everything to past tense and add an end date.

Use the present tense or the present continuous for the project, and say clearly what is done so far. Do not describe an expected result as if it were already achieved.

Examples:

• "Leading the migration of 40 client websites to a new hosting platform; 25 completed so far."
• "Developing a staff scheduling app, due to launch in Q3."

Phrases like "so far", "to date" and "on track for" make the status honest and clear. When the project finishes, update the bullet to past tense and add the real result. Interviewers often ask about ongoing projects, so be ready to explain what is left to do.

Yes, where it is natural. Neutral terms are standard in modern professional writing and avoid sounding dated.

Examples:

• "Chairman" becomes "chair" or "chairperson", unless the organisation's official title is "Chairman".
• "Salesman" becomes "sales representative" or "sales executive".
• "Manpower" becomes "staff" or "workforce", although "manpower planning" may still appear as an industry term.
• "Workmen" becomes "workers" or "crew".

Your own official job title should stay as it was given, because titles need to be accurate for reference checks. Use neutral wording in your descriptions and summary.

All are correct; use the term your target market uses and stay consistent. "Resume" without accents is the most common spelling online and in US English. "Résumé" with accents is a more formal variant. "CV" is the usual term in the UK, Ireland, much of Europe, the Middle East and India.

Practical tips:

• On the document itself, you usually do not need the word at all; your name is the title.
• In file names, avoid accents. "Amira-Khan-CV.pdf" or "Amira-Khan-Resume.pdf" is safer.
• In emails and cover letters, use the same word the job posting uses.

Some countries use "CV" for a longer document, but in everyday job applications the two words often mean the same thing.

Choose one format, usually "City, Country", and use it for every job and qualification. Example: "Doha, Qatar" or "Pune, India".

Consistency tips:

• Use the same form of each country name everywhere: "UAE" or "United Arab Emirates", not both.
• Add the country even for your home city if you are applying abroad.
• For remote work, write "Remote" plus the employer's country if that helps, such as "Remote (UK employer)".
• Keep locations in the same position in each entry, such as at the end of the date line.

Consistent locations make your history easier to scan and avoid confusion when you have worked in several countries.

Replace stock phrases with specific details from your real work. Generic resumes usually use the same phrases everyone uses, without any facts that only you could write.

Try this for each bullet:

• Remove buzzwords such as "synergy", "leverage" and "dynamic".
• Add one specific: a number, a tool, a type of client or a result.
• Read it aloud; if you would never say it in an interview, simplify it.

Example before: "Leveraged cross-functional synergies to drive operational excellence."
Example after: "Worked with finance and warehouse teams to cut order processing time from three days to one."

Specific details make your writing sound like a real person, because they come from real experience.

Generally no. Humour depends on the reader, and a joke that works for one person can seem unprofessional or confusing to another, especially across cultures and languages.

Safer ways to show personality:

• Choose a relevant, interesting detail in your interests section, if you include one.
• Write a clear, warm summary that shows what you enjoy about your work.
• Show creativity through your actual results or portfolio.

Some creative employers welcome a little wit, but it is a risk on the main document. A cover letter or interview gives you more room to show your personality in context.

Parallel structure means writing items in a list in the same grammatical form. On a resume, it means every bullet in a section starts the same way, usually with a verb in the same tense.

Not parallel:

• "Managed the front desk."
• "Responsible for bookings."
• "Customer complaints handling."

Parallel:

• "Managed the front desk."
• "Handled bookings for 120 rooms."
• "Resolved customer complaints."

Parallel lists are faster to read and look carefully edited. Apply the same idea inside a bullet: "planning, budgeting and reporting", not "planning, to budget and reports".

Use them where they make the sentence clear, and drop them only where the meaning stays obvious. Resumes are compact, but bullets should still read as correct English.

Examples:

• Clear and natural: "Managed the company's social media accounts."
• Also fine: "Managed company social media accounts."
• Too clipped: "Managed account, created report, sent to manager."

If English is not your first language, it is better to include articles than to remove them in places that make the sentence hard to follow. A fluent reader can quickly tell you where they are missing or unnecessary.

Use a hyphen when two or more words together describe a noun that comes after them. Leave it out when the description comes after the noun.

Examples:

• "A detail-oriented analyst" but "an analyst who is detail oriented".
• "Customer-facing role" but "the role was customer facing".
• "Five-year contract" but "a contract of five years".

Common resume phrases that usually take hyphens before a noun include "cross-functional team", "full-time role", "long-term project" and "high-volume environment". Be consistent across the document, especially with "full-time" and "part-time", which appear often.

Yes. Writing tools the way their makers do shows attention to detail and helps readers and search tools recognise them. Readers in technical fields notice errors like "Javascript" or "Sap".

Examples of official forms:

• JavaScript, TypeScript, GitHub, PowerPoint, AutoCAD, SAP, QuickBooks, LinkedIn.

Tips:

• Check the official website for the correct form.
• Use the same name each time; do not switch between "MS Excel" and "Microsoft Excel".
• Match the form used in the job posting when it is the official name.

When in doubt, write the full official name once and use it consistently.

Past tense, like any other job you have left. The company closing does not change how you describe your own work.

Keep the employer's name as it was when you worked there. If the closure or a later merger might confuse readers, add a short note:

• "Coastal Foods LLC (closed 2023)"
• "Al Wadi Trading (now part of Desert Group)"

This helps with reference checks, because an employer may otherwise struggle to verify a company that no longer exists. Keep any certificate of employment or experience letter you have from that company.

Go through one role at a time and decide whether each bullet is an ongoing duty, a finished result or a past job. Then set the verb accordingly.

A quick process:

• For every job you have left, change every verb to past tense.
• For your current job, change ongoing duties to present tense and finished results to past tense.
• Group present-tense bullets together and past-tense bullets together within the current role.
• Read only the first word of each bullet, top to bottom, to spot any you missed.

Example fix: "Manage", "Trained", "Handling" in an old job become "Managed", "Trained", "Handled".

Usually leave out "Mr", "Ms" and similar titles; your name alone is standard. Professional titles such as "Dr" or "Eng." are a personal choice, and some candidates in the Gulf and elsewhere include them when they hold the qualification.

If you use a professional title:

• Make sure you are entitled to it under your field's rules.
• Show the qualification behind it in your education or licences section.
• Use it consistently in your resume, cover letter and email signature.

Postnominal letters are another option, for example "Sara Ali, CPA". Keep it to the one or two most relevant ones, so your name stays easy to read.

Rewrite each line in plain English based on what you meant, rather than polishing the literal translation. Translation tools often keep word order and expressions that sound odd in English.

Common problems to look for:

• Long sentences that should become short bullets.
• Literal job titles; use the accurate English equivalent and keep the meaning honest.
• Expressions that do not exist in English or have a different meaning.
• Wrong prepositions ("responsible of", "experience on").

After rewriting, ask a fluent English reader in your field to check it, because they will also catch technical terms that were translated incorrectly. Keep dates, qualifications and names exactly matching your original documents.

Avoid "etc." because it suggests there is more but does not say what. Use "e.g." or "such as" sparingly when an example helps.

Examples:

• Weak: "Used software like Excel, Word, etc."
• Better: "Used Excel and Power BI for monthly reporting."
• Fine: "Supported key clients, e.g. two national hotel chains."

In running text, "such as" or "including" reads more smoothly than "e.g." If you list items, list the important ones and stop. A reader will assume you know common basics; they will not guess what "etc." stands for.

No. Plain, precise words sound more professional than complicated ones. Readers want to understand your experience quickly, and unusual words slow them down or seem like padding.

Swap:

• "Utilised" for "used".
• "Facilitated" for "ran" or "led", if that is what happened.
• "Endeavoured to" for "tried to", or remove it.
• "Commenced" for "started".

Use technical terms from your field where they are accurate, because those are often what employers look for. The aim is not simple vocabulary for its own sake, but the clearest correct word for each idea.