Pimp Your Resume By Cutting Overused Words

I am a big advocate of non-traditional jobs. I think everyone should own some sort of business at some point — but often on the way to starting your own business it’s necessary to eat, and usually to gain some experience too. And in order to do that, you have to get in line with everyone else and play “the Resume Game!” It’s like 52 card pick-up, only you can’t also play poker with them, and often there are more than 52 applicants for any particular job these days. Heck, in Long Island City, recently, an estimated 2,000 people waited in line at the local employment office – some for as long as four days! – to apply for 100 elevator mechanic apprenticeship positions. Nevertheless, if you need gainful employment right now (and 1 in 10 of you does), then the following might be helpful.

10 Words To Strike From Your Resume

One of the biggest problems in getting your resume to stand out is that you’re using the same “unique” words to highlight your “creativeness” that everyone else is using, usually in the same boring, bullet-pointed layout that everyone else uses. These words aren’t very descriptive, and their ubiquitous redundancy means that reading one of them in your resume (or Linked-In profile) can cause eyes to glaze over. Some of the words to watch for:

Dynamic
Communication Skills
Problem Solving
Innovative
Motivated
Track Record
Extensive Experience
Effective
Organizational
Creative.
The chief reason to avoid these words is clearly that everyone uses these same words over and over again! Using them just makes your resume that much more “blah”, and sink that much further back into the stack of identical white papers. With some of these words, the reasons are pretty clear: Everyone has a “track record”, so just shut up and tell them what you’ve done. And you really shouldn’t have to tell them that you can communicate, or that you can be organized — these are no-brainer “duh” issues. Don’t tell them, show them!

What Words To Use Instead

1) Appropriate Jargon. This may seem obvious, but before you finish your resume – let alone your cover letter – go back and re-read the job description. If they use technical terms that you’re familiar with, then pepper them where appropriate on your resume and cover letter. (If you’re NOT familiar with them, then get familiar, because these same words may be used in an interview, should you get that far!) This will show you knowledgeable in your field, and relevant as a candidate. Don’t vomit key-words on every line, but nonchalantly include them where they fit naturally. Don’t fall into the opposite problem of making your resume a dense block of jargon or a technical manual(unless, of course, you’re applying for the “Obscurator” position at a technical manual writing company — then go all out).

2) Correctly Spelled Words. I’ve been in a hiring position a few times, and one of the biggest annoyances that gets you canned before you’re hired (unless the resume pool is oddly shallow) is a hastily slapped together resume with typos and grammatical errors aplenty. If you want to show that you’re “organised” and “effishunt”, you can start by demonstrating your technical proficiency with the English language (or whatever language is the lingua franca where you are applying. Now, some understanding will be made if that lingua franca doesn’t happen to be your native tongue. But 99% of the time, it is, and typos kill your chances.

3) Words That List What You’ve Actually Done, In Sentence Format. Another no-brainer that’s often missed, rather than listing vague and nebulous words like the 10 listed above, show your effective creativity and organizational skills by listing the projects that you’ve done with a 1 or 2 line description.

The Three “S”s

Resumes don’t have to be completely off the wall to be noticed. You might consider mild use of color (or an exorbitant use, if you’re looking into a position involving art or graphic design!), but keeping your resume Simple, Sharp, and Stylish will make a good first impression, allowing them to see the unique content which doesn’t use the same generic buzz words the last 10 and next 10 applicants will use. There’s no guarantee that this will land you the job, but it will almost certainly increase your odds “dynamically.”

Justin West is married with three kids, and enjoys spending time with his wife and children and not having to work an 8 to 5. He holds his Bachelors degrees in Philosophy and History, will have a Masters in Philosophy soon. Justin got fed up with the job market in ’10, and began blogging at http://www.LifeAfterLiberalArts.com, and started a couple of businesses he runs successfully from home. He’s developed a free report, which he gives away on his website which will help average folks do the same thing. It can be downloaded by going to his website, http://www.LifeAfterLiberalArts.com, and clicking the “get access code” button in the top right corner.