5 Phrases to Leave Off Your Resume

If you’re like a lot of job seekers, writing your resume is one of the most difficult pieces of the job hunting puzzle. Knowing what to write and how to showcase your abilities is essential to making your resume stand out. Experts often advise job seekers to avoid common resume mistakes and an error often left out is the overuse of clichés and/or vague phrases. Hiring managers and recruiters usually have dozens, even hundreds of resumes to sort through and you don’t want your resume to look like everyone else’s by using common phrases and standard resume jargon.

1. “Detail-oriented”
You can’t just tell a hiring manager you’re detail-oriented in one bullet point, you have to demonstrate through your achievements and how you being detail-oriented benefited your employer.

2. “Responsible for…”
Hiring managers aren’t interesting in what you were in charge of, they want to know how well you performed these responsibilities and what actionable results came from you being responsible for certain things. Use phrases like “increased page views by x%” or “gained x amount of followers per week.”

3. “Proven track record”
Instead of simply stating you have a proven track record of increasing sales, meeting quota, etc, give real numbers and figures to support the statement. Including actual stats and data of how you have consistently achieved your goals is much more convincing than vaguely stating you have a proven track record.

4. “Excellent communication skills”
This will make the hiring manager say “so what?” How have your communication skills affected your ability and performance at your job? How have they solved problems and created solutions for you? Answering these questions gives someone real-life examples of how your communication plays a role in your work life.

5. “Team player”
While having the ability to work both independently and on a team is a huge asset for any job seeker, try and demonstrate how you have worked on a team in your past roles. Provide an instance where you collaborated with other colleagues and had great results so that the hiring manager can clearly see your ability to work on a team.

Your resume is your way to sell yourself and you’re never going to sell your abilities and experiences with fluffy cliches and overused phrases. Make your resume stand out and let hiring managers know how much you have to offer them for the specific position. Get writing today!

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