Bullet Point Punctuation on a Resume

Nobody has ever been rejected for putting periods at the end of bullets. Plenty of resumes look unproofread because half the bullets have them and half do not.

The main decision

Periods on every bullet, or periods on none. Both are correct.

• Cut order turnaround from three days to one across four sites.
• Consolidated the supplier base from 40 vendors to 12.

Or:

• Cut order turnaround from three days to one across four sites
• Consolidated the supplier base from 40 vendors to 12

Periods read slightly more formal and are the safer choice if your bullets are full clauses. No periods reads slightly cleaner and suits short fragments.

The only error is mixing them. A resume where three bullets end with a period and two do not is the most common sign of a document edited over years without a final read.

Both Purdue’s job search writing resources and Harvard’s career service materials treat the resume as a formal document, and consistency is what formality means at this level of detail.

The rule that has no exceptions

Capitalise the first word of every bullet, whether or not you use periods.

A lowercase opening reads as a mistake rather than a deliberate style, and there is no convention supporting it in this document type.

Four smaller decisions

Semicolons: avoid. A semicolon in a bullet almost always means two ideas are sharing one line.

• Rebuilt the supplier process; also trained the procurement team on the new workflow

That is two bullets. Splitting them is better in every respect. If you must join clauses, a comma with a conjunction or a colon is clearer.

Colons: useful, sparingly. A colon works well before a short list or an explanation.

• Led three workstreams: supplier onboarding, contract migration and systems integration

Dashes: pick one style. If you use a dash in date ranges, use the same character everywhere. “Mar 2021 to Jun 2024” avoids the question entirely and is easier to keep consistent, which is why it is worth preferring.

Serial comma: pick one and hold it. Whether you write “onboarding, contracts, and integration” or “onboarding, contracts and integration”, do it the same way in every bullet.

Numbers and symbols

Small conventions that show a document was read.

Numerals for quantities. “12 vendors” rather than “twelve vendors”. Resumes are scanned and numerals stand out.

Percentages with the symbol, consistently. Either “40%” everywhere or “40 percent” everywhere.

Currency consistently. “$340m” or “$340 million”, not both.

Ranges consistently. “3 to 5 days” or “3-5 days”, one style.

Approximations, one word. Pick “roughly”, “about” or “around” and use that one. Rotating through all three in a single resume reads oddly.

Ampersands and abbreviations

Ampersands: only where they are part of a proper name, as in “Brennan & Ochoa LLP”. Otherwise write “and”.

Abbreviations: spell out on first use if there is any chance a reader will not know it, then abbreviate. “Warehouse management system (WMS)” once, then WMS.

Industry-specific abbreviations that every reader in the field knows are fine unqualified, and the test is whether a recruiter rather than a practitioner would recognise it. Recruiters screen first.

The proofreading pass

Do this on a printed copy or a PDF, not in the editing view, because the editing view is where you stop seeing your own document.

1. Read only the last character of every bullet. Are they all the same?
2. Read only the first character of every bullet. Are they all capitals?
3. Search for a semicolon. Split any bullet containing one.
4. Check every date range uses the same separator.
5. Check every percentage and currency figure uses the same format.
6. Check “roughly”, “about” and “around” are not mixed.

Six passes, each looking at one thing. Reading for meaning does not catch these, because your brain supplies the consistency your document lacks.

Why this is worth ten minutes

Punctuation consistency is not about correctness for its own sake. It is the cheapest available signal of attention to detail, and in roles where that quality is part of the job, an inconsistent document quietly argues against you.

It matters most in administrative, legal, financial, editorial and compliance roles, where a reader is explicitly assessing care. See the receptionist resume guide and the lawyer resume guide for two cases where the document is itself a work sample.

Related

For the bullets themselves, see bullet points on a resume and resume achievements. For overall consistency, see basic resume templates and the resume fonts guide.

Or generate consistently formatted bullets with the resume bullet point writer, free at Kazifi.