A new Study Ranks Best and Worst Words to Use in a Resume. So if you happen to consider yourself as a dynamic go-to person who’s results driven and a team player then you better think again because you sound exactly like everyone else who’s blindly copying these adjectives into their CV and hoping to land that dream job!
The national survey was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder from November 6 to December 2, 2013, and included a representative sample of 2,201 hiring managers and human resource professionals across industries and company sizes.
The Worst Resume Terms
The following terms are resume turn-offs as selected by respondents:
- Best of breed: 38 percent
- Go-getter: 27 percent
- Think outside of the box: 26 percent
- Synergy: 22 percent
- Go-to person: 22 percent
- Thought leadership: 16 percent
- Value add: 16 percent
- Results-driven: 16 percent
- Team player: 15 percent
- Bottom-line: 14 percent
- Hard worker: 13 percent
- Strategic thinker: 12 percent
- Dynamic: 12 percent
- Self-motivated: 12 percent
- Detail-oriented: 11 percent
- Proactively: 11 percent
- Track record: 10 percent
The Best Resume Terms
There are, however, several strong verbs and terms candidates can use to help describe their experience. The following are terms employers would like to see on a resume:
- Achieved: 52 percent
- Improved: 48 percent
- Trained/Mentored: 47 percent
- Managed: 44 percent
- Created: 43 percent
- Resolved: 40 percent
- Volunteered: 35 percent
- Influenced: 29 percent
- Increased/Decreased: 28 percent
- Ideas: 27 percent
- Negotiated: 25 percent
- Launched: 24 percent
- Revenue/Profits: 23 percent
- Under budget: 16 percent
- Won: 13 percent
