Résumé words · Improving and fixing
Another word for “Simplified”
What it is trying to claim: That something became easier to use or understand.
Why it underperforms
Simplicity is judged by the person using the thing, not by the person who built it, so a self-reported simplification is an opinion about your own work. It also hides what was removed, and removal is the actual content: something got simpler because steps, options or code went away, and naming those is more convincing than the adjective.
Stronger than "Simplified"
Not ranked. Each is right for one situation, and the situation is the column that matters.
| Word | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Cut | Steps, fields or options came out. Give the counts. |
| Removed | Something stopped existing entirely. |
| Merged | Two things became one. |
| Rewrote | You replaced it with something simpler. |
| Clarified | The thing was language rather than structure. |
A real bullet, fixed
Before
Simplified the customer onboarding flow.
After
Cut onboarding from 11 fields to 4 by deriving company size and industry from the email domain; completion went from 54% to 79%.
Eleven to four says what simplification meant here, and the completion rate says whether the user agreed it was simpler.
When “Simplified” is the right word
When you can say what came out. "Simplified X by removing Y" is a strong sentence because the second half is checkable.
Common questions
- What can I say instead of "Simplified" on a résumé?
- Cut, Removed, Merged, Rewrote. Pick the one that matches what you actually did, then follow it with a number. Eleven to four says what simplification meant here, and the completion rate says whether the user agreed it was simpler.
- Is "Simplified" bad on a résumé?
- Simplicity is judged by the person using the thing, not by the person who built it, so a self-reported simplification is an opinion about your own work. It also hides what was removed, and removal is the actual content: something got simpler because steps, options or code went away, and naming those is more convincing than the adjective.
- When is it fine to use "Simplified"?
- When you can say what came out. "Simplified X by removing Y" is a strong sentence because the second half is checkable.
Fix these next
- StreamlinedThat you made a process simpler or faster.
- ConsolidatedThat several things became one.
- ImprovedThat something works better than it did.
- OptimizedThat you tuned something to perform better.
- ReducedThat a number you can name went down because of you.
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.
Approve the jobs and we get them applied to, with a confirmation saved for each one. The free tier is 25 applications a month, no card, and a credit is only spent once a submission is confirmed.