Strong Words for a Résumé: Every time you apply for a position at a company, you are potentially representing more than just another employee to fill its roster. The organization is looking for individuals who can play important roles that can help achieve crucial business objectives, so your skills, education, experience and other positive attributes toward work should make themselves clearly known to the employer — conventionally, through the résumé you submit.
However, this is where many job applicants stumble hard. In the attempt to appear to be the most fitting candidate, people tend to pepper their résumés with words that they think the employers want to see.
According to a CareerBuilder survey, terms such as synergy, results-driven, team player, go-to person, dynamic, go-getter, self-motivated, detail-oriented, thought leadership, and even hard worker — all the terms that people have been struggling to smoothly inject into their résumés in the interest of appearing serious and professional — are all guaranteed to turn employers off, just like that.
With recruiters spending only 6.25 seconds to look over a résumé before deciding whether the candidate progresses through to the next stage of the application process or not (according to a survey by job search site TheLadders.com), you cannot afford to miss out on an employment opportunity simply because of a poor choice of words. You have to be more attuned to what employers want to discover about your from your document.
Fortunately, just as there are sweeping terms that heap empty self-praise which recruiters find meaningless, there are also words that draw their eye and encourage them to learn more about you and give you a bigger shot at the open job position.
The key to effective résumé building, as it turns out, is simply to include words and phrases that can paint a specific picture of what you were able to accomplish at your former jobs — and that can give recruiters a good idea of how you can add value to their company in turn. Essentially, these should be strong action words or phrases that let hiring managers know exactly what you have done and are capable of doing for them.
Here are the top 10 examples of strong words for a resume that will catch an employer’s eye, according to CareerBuilder:
- Achieved
- Improved
- Trained or Mentored
- Managed
- Created
- Resolved
- Volunteered
- Influenced
- Increased or Decreased
- Ideas
These words, hiring managers say, are better able to describe what you accomplished at work instead of describing you. Rather than merely saying that you were a valuable member of your former company’s marketing team (which tells a recruiter nothing about what you did to deserve such a description), use action words to specify how you were able to help the company arrive at this value you are talking about.
“You can say, for instance, that you developed and managed a social media campaign that increased conversions by 30% within six months.”
Your résumé is your singular chance to tell an employer that you are the best candidate for the job. When it informs them right away of what you were able to contribute to a previous employer’s processes, as well as what skills and experience you can bring to their table for their benefit, then you have a greater chance of securing that coveted job position.
Now that you have learned the top Strong Words for a Résumé, click here to see what perfect job is waiting for you!