Another word for “increased” on a resume
8 stronger alternatives to “increased,” each with the situation it actually fits, plus 2 before/after bullet rewrites and the case for keeping “increased” where it belongs. Covers increase, increasing too.
8 better words than “increased”
A synonym is only an upgrade if it is more specific about what you did. Pick the row that matches the actual situation — swapping in the longest word on the list is how a resume starts reading as thesaurus-driven rather than senior.
| Instead of “increased” | Use it when… |
|---|---|
| Grew | Use for revenue, users, and teams. Slightly warmer, and standard in commercial resumes. |
| Drove | Use when you caused the rise indirectly and want to claim the causation explicitly. |
| Boosted | Use for short, sharp lifts — a campaign, a release, an experiment. |
| Scaled | Use when the increase required structural change, not just more effort. |
| Expanded | Use for footprint — markets, accounts, coverage, product surface. |
| Doubled / Tripled | Use the multiplier when it is true. It reads faster than a percentage and is harder to forget. |
| Accelerated | Use when what increased was a rate rather than a level. |
| Lifted | Common in growth and experimentation work — “lifted conversion 8%.” |
Before and after: real bullet rewrites
Changing the verb is the small half of the job. Every rewrite below also adds the scope, the number, or the constraint that makes the claim checkable — which is what the reader is scanning for in the six seconds they give the page.
BeforeIncreased sales revenue.
AfterGrew ARR from $3.2M to $5.8M in 18 months by opening two verticals and rebuilding the outbound motion around named accounts.
Why it works: Absolute figures, a period, and the two things you actually did. The mechanism is what separates you from market tailwind.
BeforeIncreased website traffic significantly.
AfterTripled organic sessions from 41K to 128K a month over three quarters by shipping 90 programmatic comparison pages and fixing a canonical-tag error that had been suppressing 600 URLs.
Why it works: “Significantly” is a word that means the writer did not have the number. Replace it with the number every time.
Say it out loud before the interview asks you to
A rewritten bullet has to survive the follow-up question. MiPrep turns your resume into a rehearsed answer set in your own voice, from your own projects — so the story behind the bullet is ready before anyone asks for it.
Download MiPrep — free 🔒 Your resume stays on your machineFrequently asked questions
What is another word for “increased” on a resume?
The strongest alternatives are Grew (use for revenue, users, and teams. Slightly warmer, and standard in commercial resumes); Drove (use when you caused the rise indirectly and want to claim the causation explicitly); Boosted (use for short, sharp lifts — a campaign, a release, an experiment). Which one fits depends on what you actually did — see the full table of 8 alternatives above.
Is “increased” a bad word to use on a resume?
“Increased” is not weak so much as under-loaded. Nine times in ten it appears without the baseline, the period, or the mechanism, which makes it unverifiable. Keep it in almost every case where a number went up — it is the plainest available verb and plain is good. Just add the baseline.
How do I rewrite a resume bullet that uses “increased”?
Replace the verb and add the evidence. “Increased sales revenue.” becomes “Grew ARR from $3.2M to $5.8M in 18 months by opening two verticals and rebuilding the outbound motion around named accounts.” — absolute figures, a period, and the two things you actually did. The mechanism is what separates you from market tailwind.
Do these synonyms work for “increase” too?
Yes. increase, increasing are the same word in different forms, and every alternative on this page can be conjugated to match. Keep the tense consistent: past tense for previous roles, present tense only for your current one.