Résumé words · Contribution
Another word for “Contributed to”
What it is trying to claim: That you were part of something and want to be accurate about your share.
Why it underperforms
It is the most honest of the hedging phrases and still the vaguest, because it names no share. A contribution can be a line of code or a year of work, so a reader with no further information assumes the smaller. It is also structurally passive: the sentence is about the project, and you appear in it as a modifier rather than as the subject.
Stronger than "Contributed to"
Not ranked. Each is right for one situation, and the situation is the column that matters.
| Word | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Built | Name the part that was yours instead of the whole. |
| Wrote | Your contribution was a document or a module. |
| Added | A specific feature or capability. Say which. |
| Supported | Genuinely a supporting role, stated plainly. |
| Co-authored | Shared credit on a named output. |
A real bullet, fixed
Before
Contributed to the redesign of the onboarding experience.
After
Built the email-verification step of the onboarding redesign, which cut fake signups from about 12% of registrations to under 2%.
Naming your piece is more credible than claiming the redesign, and it gives the number somewhere to attach.
When “Contributed to” is the right word
For open-source and academic work where contribution is the formal term and the record is public. "Contributed to" a named repository or paper is checkable, which is what rescues it.
Common questions
- What can I say instead of "Contributed to" on a résumé?
- Built, Wrote, Added, Supported. Pick the one that matches what you actually did, then follow it with a number. Naming your piece is more credible than claiming the redesign, and it gives the number somewhere to attach.
- Is "Contributed to" bad on a résumé?
- It is the most honest of the hedging phrases and still the vaguest, because it names no share. A contribution can be a line of code or a year of work, so a reader with no further information assumes the smaller. It is also structurally passive: the sentence is about the project, and you appear in it as a modifier rather than as the subject.
- When is it fine to use "Contributed to"?
- For open-source and academic work where contribution is the formal term and the record is public. "Contributed to" a named repository or paper is checkable, which is what rescues it.
Fix these next
- Helped withThat you contributed to something without overstating your role.
- Worked onThat you were part of a project worth naming.
- Assisted withThat you supported someone else on a piece of work.
- Involved inThat you were part of something.
All 125 words are on the résumé words index. For the verbs grouped by what they claim, read résumé power verbs.
After the résumé
Fixing the words is the easy half. The applying is the slow half.
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