Best and Worst Resume Words – CareerBuilder Survey
CareerBuilder recently released the results of a national (US) survey of 2,201 hiring managers and human resource professionals across industries and company sizes. The survey indicated some interesting findings: 68% of hiring managers spend two minutes or less, on average, reviewing résumés. The survey indicated that “Hiring managers prefer strong action words that define specific experience, skills and accomplishments. Subjective terms and terms and clichés are seen as negative because they don’t convey real information. ” according to Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources at CareerBuilder. Following are the results of the CareerBuilder survey:
The Worst Résumé Terms
- 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 Résumé Terms
- 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
Please post your thoughts by commenting below.