The Best (and Worst!) Words to Put on Your Resume
When writing a resume, be careful with your words.
A new study from CareerBuilder revealed that 68 percent of hiring managers spend less than two minutes reviewing each resume they receive, while 17 percent spend less than 30 seconds reading each submission. With so little time to capture interest, a candidate's word choice can make all the difference. When evaulating how a resume is written, those surveyed said they like seeing some words, while others that are an immediate turn off.
Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder, said those in charge of hiring prefer strong action words that define specific experience, skills and accomplishments. [8 Words That Will Land Your Resume in the Trash]
"Subjective terms and clichés are seen as negative because they don't convey real information," Haefner said. "For instance, don't say you are 'results driven.' Show the employer your actual results."
To help job candidates, the surveyed hiring managers identified the resume terms they think are overused or cliché, and which terms are strong additions.
The worst resume terms, those that are a quick turn off, are:
Best of breed
Go-getter
Think outside of the box
Synergy
Go-to person
Thought leadership
Value added
Results driven
Team player
Bottom line
Hard worker
Strategic thinker
Dynamic
Self-motivated
Detail oriented
Proactively
Track record
However, candidates can use several strong verbs and terms to better describe their experiences, including:
Improved
Trained/Mentored
Managed
Created
Resolved
Volunteered
Influenced
Increased/Decreased
Ideas
Negotiated
Launched
Revenue/Profits
Under budget
Won
The study was based on surveys of 2,201 hiring managers and human resource professionals across a range of industries and company sizes.
Originally published on Business News Daily.
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