Résumé words · Building and making
Another word for “Established”
What it is trying to claim: That something now exists permanently because you set it up.
Why it underperforms
It carries a quiet permanence claim that most bullets cannot support. Establishing something means it outlived the setting up, and a process that ran twice and lapsed was not established, it was attempted. The word is also vague about what kind of thing appeared: a policy, a team, a relationship and a habit are all establishable, and the reader has to guess which one you mean.
Stronger than "Established"
Not ranked. Each is right for one situation, and the situation is the column that matters.
| Word | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Set up | Plainer, and it makes no permanence claim you have to defend. |
| Founded | It became an entity with a name and an identity. |
| Introduced | It was new here, which is a smaller and safer claim. |
| Standardized | What you established was consistency across people already doing it. |
| Formalized | It was happening informally and you gave it rules. |
A real bullet, fixed
Before
Established new procedures for the quality control team.
After
Set up the weekly defect review the QA team still runs three years on, which took repeat escapes from about five a quarter to one.
Whether it survived your departure is the only real test of "established", and almost nobody puts it in the sentence.
When “Established” is the right word
When the thing is still running after you left, and you can say so. "Still in use" is the single most persuasive clause available to this verb.
Common questions
- What can I say instead of "Established" on a résumé?
- Set up, Founded, Introduced, Standardized. Pick the one that matches what you actually did, then follow it with a number. Whether it survived your departure is the only real test of "established", and almost nobody puts it in the sentence.
- Is "Established" bad on a résumé?
- It carries a quiet permanence claim that most bullets cannot support. Establishing something means it outlived the setting up, and a process that ran twice and lapsed was not established, it was attempted. The word is also vague about what kind of thing appeared: a policy, a team, a relationship and a habit are all establishable, and the reader has to guess which one you mean.
- When is it fine to use "Established"?
- When the thing is still running after you left, and you can say so. "Still in use" is the single most persuasive clause available to this verb.
Fix these next
- CreatedThat something new exists because of you.
- BuiltThat you constructed something from parts.
- ImplementedThat you put a system, tool, or process into place.
- DevelopedThat you built or matured something over a period.
- SpearheadedThat you started something and drove it through resistance.
- PioneeredThat you did something nobody in the field had done.
All 72 words are on the résumé words index. For the verbs grouped by what they claim, read résumé power verbs.
After the résumé
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