What words to use and what to avoid in a resume?

Do you use more adjectives or verbs in your CV? Do you know which terms HR will discourage rather than capture? By choosing the right words in your CV, you can stand out among other candidates and thus improve your position when looking for a new job. Read on and draw inspiration for a more effective CV that will captivate the HR at first glance.

Clichés that you prefer not to mention in your resume

Applicants often use words and phrases in their CVs that their employer wants to hear. Unfortunately, the opposite is true, and this effort to recite learned sentences about oneself and one's strengths may discourage HR.

Read the following example of a person's CV presentation: "My name is Petr and I am an enthusiastic, creative and highly motivated provider of design solutions with a willingness to collaborate on large projects and provide clients with their rich experience gained in a dynamic team." , but an experienced HR professional encounters similar clichés and exaggerated descriptions on a daily basis.

If you want to be interested, try to demonstrate your strengths on concrete examples from practice. Instead of adjectives that describe qualities, reach for verbs that can convince your abilities much more effectively.

List of frequently used words you should avoid:

1. Innovative  - prove your inventiveness on specific examples, projects and don't forget to state your personal contribution
2. Motivated  - motivation at work is the basic driving force for good performance, so rather describe what specifically motivates you to achieve a certain goal
3. Creative  - the word creativity is currently very popular and thanks to that its value devalues
4. Responsible  - every employee is responsible for the performance of their work, so it is a matter of necessity rather than quality
5. Dynamic, passionate  - are just common descriptions of enthusiasm (similar to the words active, energetic, etc.)
6. Authoritative, organizational type  - describe where and how you have managed a large number of people so far
7. Analytical thinking  - a gradual and conscious thinking that every person naturally has
8. Results-oriented  - every employer expects results from their employees, so this phrase is vague and unnecessary
9. Team-oriented  - a necessary feature for achieving common goals of the company
10. Guru  - used in the sense of "omniscient" expert, which may sound like praise
11. Unique, incredibly  ... (+ adjective) - we recommend omitting these exaggerated superlatives completely

Effective words in your resume

We write a CV in a very distinctive style, unlike other genres of administrative style. Strong words should always be used at the beginning of a sentence, as they immediately attract attention when explaining work achievements.

Therefore, we know the so-called effective words often used by people from the HR industry, who enter these words as keywords into an electronic database when scanning or searching for a candidate. This creates easy-to-find matches between entered keywords and employee requirements, so that the HR can scan a large number of CVs that contain these words in a short time.

Selection of effective words that demonstrate the qualities of the worker in combination with a suitable verb:

• Initiative  - call, create, invent, design, develop, formulate, establish, produce, invent, start ...
• Leadership skills  - train, coordinate, delegate, direct, manage, promote, support, establish, accompany, inspire, lead, mentor, motivate, educate, arrange, organize, measure, trace ...
• Organizations  - organize, collect, distribute, submit, control, maintain, monitor, organize, plan, prepare, process, record, explore, program, sort, standardize, systematize, update, verify ...
• Communication  - address, broadcast, call, cooperate, contact, respond, evoke, hear, influence, listen, negate, submit, settle, speak, say
• Help  - assist, assist, care, diagnose, educate, support, facilitate, influence, present, rehabilitate, empower, teach, volunteer ...
• Problem solving  - analyze, evaluate, classify, create, critique, design, develop, evaluate, invent, separate, map, optimize, prioritize, revise, test, test ...
• Creativity  - build, compose, create, design, direct, draw, entertain, modernize, illustrate, invent, innovate, model, create, paint, perform ...
• Improvement  - reduce, exclude, improve, enlarge, maximize, minimize, delete, improve, shorten, speed up, exit ...