Using Resume Buzzwords And Actions Words On Your Resume
Recruiters come across too many of the same buzzwords on applicants resumes. Sticking to the norm will likely cause them to distance themselves and overlook your resume for someone else.
The best way to enhance your resume is to use the buzzwords sparingly, and match them to the job description. With action words, recruiters can get a better sense of your previous experiences while you can show your initiative at the same time.
Whenever you feel confused with implementing some of the power words, you could always right-click and look for synonyms. But if youre doing this, just ensure you choose an appropriate word that makes sense and fits with what youre trying to say.
that got people hired at Spotify, Amazon, Verizon, and other large organizations.
Buzzwords And Clichs To Banish From Your Resume
A resume is designed to communicate a job seekers accomplishments and help him rise abovethe competition. But too often, an otherwise impressive work history and skill set can be undermined by resume buzzwords and clichés that disguise a candidates qualifications.
For the hiring manager, a resume peppered with vague terms and phrases reads like a dull carbon copy of the dozen other resumes shes passed on. Theres nothing unique or distinctive here to consider further. In fact, buzzwords and clichés are often a red flag to employers, who may feel like the candidates trying to exaggerate his qualifications or hide knowledge gaps.
Not sure whats acceptable language, and what isnt? Here are somekey terms to avoid in both your resume and cover letter, with advice for good alternatives to use.
Better Alternatives For Common Key Phrases
When organizations compile a huge list of applicants, they use these systems to scan for buzzwords on their resumes. The best strategy is to implement them directly from the job description and turn them into subsections.
Heres a good example from Paula. She included the characteristic of being independent as one of her core strengths because this was something potential employers were looking for on her eCommerce resume.
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Why Should You Avoid Using Resume Clichs
You should avoid using resume clichés because, above all, they do nothing to set you apart from other applicants. First and foremost, the core purpose of your resume is to differentiate yourself from the competition and secure an interview. Using cliches doesnt support this goal.
Terms like dedicated professional, team player and entrepreneurial do not provide insight into who you are, what you are have achieved, and what you can bring to the role you are applying. Also, there is a cringe factor that accompanies resume clichés. Alongside failing to showcase your uniqueness, you risk making an unfavourable first impression using these phrases.
What Are Buzzwords Or Keywords In A Resume
Buzzwords or keywords in a resume are words that highlight job-specific skills or personal qualities that employers are seeking.
The best way to find useful buzzwords or keywords for your resume is by reading job ads for positions in your industry. Usually, hiring managers will mention the exact hard and soft skills theyre looking for in the desired qualifications and responsibilities sections of the ad.
Check for any skills or personality traits that are mentioned, and include these words in your resume to boost your chances of impressing the employer.
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Get Your Resume To The Top Of The Pile
Writing your firstor even fiftieth!resume can be a daunting task, whether you choose to use buzzwords or not. Dont rely on memory, assumptions or hearsay to create your ticket to a better career. Instead, read our other tips and tricks and try our resume creator to get your resume to the very top of the pile.
Buzzwords To Use Instead
While having buzzwords help to give your resume that bit of oomph, dont depend your life on it. Use it sparingly but more importantly, use it correctly. Check out some of our favourite action words!
Creative skills: Conceptualised, Customised, Designed, Developed, InitiatedTechnical skills: Applied, Installed, Upgraded, Performed, ImplementedLeadership skills: Executed, Led, Administered, Managed, OversawProblem-solving skills: Created, Tailored, Recommended, Solved, EstablishedRemoving clichés and using the right buzzwords is only one step. Ultimately, you must make sure youre including the right skill sets in your resume and matching them to the job that youre applying for.
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What Power Words Accomplish
Power words are used for several reasons. First, many hiring managers quickly skim through resumes and cover letters due to the high volume they receive. These power words jump off the page, quickly showing the hiring manager you have the skills and qualifications to get the job done.
Also, most resume language is repetitive and boring. If your language is the same as everyone elses, it will be hard for you to stand out.
Thoughtful, appropriate word choice will set you apart from the competition.
Finally, power words are useful when a company uses an Applicant Tracking System . These tracking systems help screen applications so that employers only need to focus on the top candidates. One way an ATS works is to eliminate resumes that are missing certain keywords.
By including these words, you increase your chances of making it through the ATS and having your application read.
What Are The Power Words In A Resume
Having covered the resume buzzwords not to use ever, you now know what not to do.
Next, here are the words that you should be using on your resume or CV.
Here come the resume power words.
They are also called resume action verbs.
Resume power words and phrases are powerful verbs that put the spotlight on the experience and skills youâve got.
Recruiters see power words and know theyâre going to be presented with value statements and examples of tangible results.
Letâs jump into the details.
Pro-Tip Always remind yourself when writing your resume – the best resume power words are there to describe what you achieved and need to have details, examples, and accomplishments.
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Ten Best Resume Buzzwords To Use
You have written your resume, and now its time to transform some of your more passive sentences into action sentences with our favorite buzzwords. Here are our top 15, which can be divided into two categories:
Buzzwords to describe deliverables:
-
Redesigned
-
Supervised
Using action words to describe your past roles and career objective will help make your resume more specific. Remember, the more specific to the job description, the better.
The company knows what they want in a candidate its your job to show them that you recognize those needs and can be the perfect candidate for the role.
Then again, theres one more thing you can do.
Make a new resume and get more interviews.
Plus, a great resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our resume builder here. Heres what it may look like:
Why You Should Use Action Words
Unlike their non-action counterparts, action words help you clearly communicate your skills and experience to employers and, ultimately, maximize the overall impact of your résumé. This, in turn, helps you set yourself apart from the competition an estimated 250 other applicants, according to data compiled by Glassdoor.
Consider these two statements:
- Responsible for the companys social media marketing campaigns
- Oversaw the companys social media marketing campaigns
Now, they both say exactly the same thing. But the first one elicits a meh response. The second one, on the other hand, is so much more powerful and thats because its kicked off with an action word. Its also shorter, meaning you can use the newly freed-up space to talk about other important achievements that you might have otherwise needed to remove to keep your résumé to two pages.
Plus, action words make for easy skimming, as they provide recruiters with instant information and prompt them to continue reading your résumé which is exactly what you want, considering that you only have 7.4 seconds to make an impression.
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How To Find Resume Buzzwords
It might be difficult at first to think of buzzwords to use in your resume. If this situation is happening to you, dont sweat it. The language you use, buzzwords included, and writing a resume is probably much different from how you speak in casual conversations.
Thats why writing a resume with buzzwords can be difficult because its a style that is likely unfamiliar to you.
The first resource you can use to find buzzwords that hiring managers, and the resume scanner, will be looking for is in the job description. Every job description will have a list of skills and qualifications necessary and desired for the job. Use those keywords within your resume, especially in your career summary/objective and work history sections.
Then, once you have utilized the keywords in the job description to describe your work history and experience, do some research on the companys values. Take a look at the about us section of the companys website and read the bios of the main team players. Utilizing some of their keywords will help make your resume fit well with the companys mission.
Resume Clichs To Avoid
Being a recruiter sieving through resumes is much like being on a dating site. You look through their profiles, read their About Me section, and then either swipe left if they dont fit the bill, or swipe right if they stand a chance. Sometimes, their interests are just not compatible with yours. But other times, they could be someone that fits every single point on your checklist. Unfortunately, youre just turned off by their cliched profiles of I love to take romantic walks down the beach, so you swiped left.
Thats the same case for recruiters. You may have the exact education qualifications theyre looking for, acquired every skill set on their requirements list and have more than the minimum number of years when it comes to working experience. Yet, they still swiped left on you.
If you find that to be a common occurrence, dont despair and accept that as your fate. The likely reason youre not getting any positive response despite meeting all the job requirements is your resumes inability to convey that youre the right person for the job.
Relook at your resume and spruce it up. First, make sure you have the basic elements for an acceptable resume. Then zero in on any cliches and replace them with the appropriate buzzwords. Here are some of the top clichés you should discard:
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Using Action Words On Your Resume
Action words are used to describe the impact youve had in your previous roles. The typical action words people think of when putting their resume together are these two words: increased and decreased.
These are everyones bread-and-butter. But that doesnt mean to say there are better alternatives you could choose from too.
Buzzwords To Avoid And Which Ones To Use Instead
Employers spend as little as six seconds skimming resumes before they decide if theyre ready to crumple it up and and throw it in the trash. For yours to stand out and live lifespan longer than six seconds, there are some buzzwords you can use and some you should avoid at all costs.
Here are some commonly used buzzwords that employers hate, and how you can fix them.
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Shows Strong Communication Skills
Writing a powerful resume can help to show the hiring manager that you have good written communication skills. Linking buzzwords to the relevant skills you want to showcase can make your writing clearer and more interesting. Integrating buzzwords naturally into your resume and using them to describe your skills can also convey your strong writing skills.
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Creative Think Outside The Box Strategic Thinker Passionate
If you actually were capable of thinking outside the box, you would probably use less bland terms to describe yourself than creative in your resume. Cmon, did you even pay attention in art school?
Terms like creative and passionate are some of those meaningless nonwords Englishprofessors chide you for using in your essays. To make employers believe that youre actually capable of thinking outside the box, share specific examples of times that you developed new ideas and processes.
Better buzzwords: Words like created, produced, improved, developed, and influenced suggest that youve actually made something or caused something to happen . Employers like buzzwords that indicate that youve actively done something in your work experience that has benefited the company.
Developed new ways to cut energy use in the office improved company energy efficiency by 50 percent.
Created new themes for annual company fundraiser increased participation by 20 percent.
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Why Resume Buzzwords And Clichs Could Be Harmful
Recruitment experts reveal that the most common mistake job seekers make is that they use a lot of resume buzzwords and clichés that are overused or cliché in their CV/resumes especially in the experience section which actually makes the resume reader less interested to hire them. Meaning that the CV writers often fail to showcase their authentic evidence-based skills or achievements in a good language style. Rather they use vague and most common language that is not specific enough to make their career achievements and skills unique.
For instance, if you are a Management Professional and are going to write your resume, the idea of writing your experience will naturally come to you like Equipped with excellent communication skills or Excellent leadership skills etc. But, I would emphasize that this is very imprecise. This actually doesnt give a picture of you at all. Rather, the Recruitment experts highlight the need to provide evidence of your achievements. Such as, Introduced growth hacking strategies and increased the web traffic by 50% without expanding the annual budget.
Below are such resume buzzwords and clichés you should avoid using
How To Use Action Words
When describing your professional experiences, you want to start off each statement with an action word. These become what are known as action statements, which emphasize the results that benefited your past and current employers and showcase the value you bring to new employers.
You can create action statements by following this simple formula:
Action word + Duty + Result
Heres what it looks like in action:
Negotiated advertising deals with global clients , culminating in annual revenues of $5 million .
Of course, you can mix up the structure of action statements by listing the result before the details of what you did , but the action word must always start the sentence.
Speaking of grammar, make sure that action words are used in the correct verb tense: past tense when youre writing about something that happened in the past , and present tense when describing something that is currently happening .
On that note, get rid of personal pronouns like I that would normally precede verbs. For example, I managed would become Managed.
Meanwhile, its a good idea to include industry keywords in each statement, which you can gather by reading the job description this effectively helps you write a résumé thats tailored to the job youre applying for and thats optimized for applicant tracking systems.
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Resume Buzzwords You Should First Avoid On Resumes And Linkedin
1. A fast-learner
It is fair that you use these resume buzzwords or cliché in order to show that you are lacking a certain skill in a certain area and how you would enhance that skill or learn it effectively and quickly if the job was offered to you. However, if you want to mention this natural ability, you need to be tactful enough to position it.
Tip: Mention or describe the time frame that you grasped your new skill quickly
Eg. Learned SEO techniques with HTML within less than a month
2. Experienced
It has become such a common language formula that people mention Experienced plus profession or Experienced plus task in resumes such as An experienced Marketing Professional or Experienced in project management, or any that follows the same pattern. But unfortunately, this is a very imprecise way to describe your professional experience. This actually does not say anything about the quality of experience you have had. And this writing style does not seem to be something unique to attract the CV readers attention among others. Because, almost all have used the same.
Tip: List specifically the performance/achievement/task to highlight your skills and experience
Eg. 1 Prepared monthly and weekly sales reports and reported insights and sales trends to the director
Eg. 2 Managed a team of 10 in the Department of sales and boosted YoY sales in 10%
3. Team Player
Tip: Mention or describe the time frame that you grasped your new skill quickly
4. Communication Skills
Whats The Difference Between Keywords And Buzzwords
While subtle, there is a difference between the role keywords versus buzzwords play on your resume. Buzzwords are specific to characteristics job candidates should have, whereas keywords are more industry-specific. Keywords can include words related to specialized skills, education or experiences that you have for the role. Buzzwords, on the other hand, show what character qualities you will bring to the position.
Establishing a tone that allows the reader to feel like they know you could launch your new career. The beauty of buzzwords is that if you use the right ones, youll have the attention of your reader. These buzzwords could point to leadership skills, creativity, innovation or having initiative. You should be mindful of which you use, however, so that these words dont give a negative impression to the hiring manager.
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