Common Words and Phrases On Your CV

Why Your Words and Phrases are Important

The job market can be a ruthless, competitive environment, and it takes extra effort to stand out from the crowd. Most recruiters sort through hundreds of CVs for each job, so the last thing they want to read is another CV where the candidate states they are ‘motivated’, ‘hard-working’ or ‘have good attention to detail’. The words and phrases you use should engage the reader and give them something new and unexpected to read. If you can pull this off, you can avoid your CV getting glossed over and tossed on the rejection pile.

Using appropriate words and phrases will not only make it easier for recruiters to skim through your CV, but for applicant tracking systems (ATS) as well. This makes it more likely that you’ll pass the initial stage of the recruitment process.

The best way to capture the attention of hiring managers is to make sure your CV uses action verbs and strong words and phrases to emphasise your skills. This will ensure your CV goes beyond simply describing your responsibilities and everyday job duties, to exploring the impact you’ve made in previous roles.

Buzzwords to avoid 

There are certain ‘buzzwords’ that recruiters may tire of seeing on CVs because they say little about your experience and a lot about your lack of imagination. These words are so common on CVs that they’ve almost lost all meaning, and they certainly don’t help you stand out from the crowd. Various studies have been undertaken to establish the most over-used CV buzzwords (1), but here are some that are particularly common:

• Specialise: Stating that you ‘specialise’ in something is not really saying anything. Unless you’re a generalist, everyone is a specialist in something.
• Experienced: Like ‘specialise’, experience doesn’t say much. If you’ve worked at one company for 10 years, you could be considered as ‘experienced’, but this may not mean much if you don’t know the ins and outs of your job.
• Skilled: If you’re applying for a role, recruiters will expect you to have the necessary skills. Saying that you’re ‘skilled’ isn’t as effective as showing recruiters how you applied your skills effectively to projects.
• Leadership: While there’s nothing with the word per se, there are other ways to demonstrate your ‘leadership’.  You’ll impress employers more if you focus on the specific actions you took and the results you achieved.
• Passionate: You may be ‘passionate’ about your chosen career; however, so is everyone else.  Sometimes, people say they’re ‘passionate’ to hide their lack of experience which is not the impression you want to give.
• Expert: Simply stating that you’re an ‘expert’. In fact, it can come across as over-confident. You’ll be more convincing if you focus on quantifiable results and achievements.
• Motivated: Employers would have a right to be concerned if you weren’t ‘motivated’. Therefore, stating that you are, doesn’t really say anything about your work ethic or dedication.
• Creative: You may want to let employers know that you can think of original and out-of-the-box solutions or that you have an artistic side. However, if everyone uses the word ‘creative’, it loses its originality and employers will also be likely to see you as unoriginal as well.
• Strategic: Strategy is important in business. Without the ability to plan ahead, no business can survive. That said, if you describe yourself as ‘strategic’, you’re not telling employers about your ability to plan for contingencies and to solve problems.
• Focused: Being ‘focused’ means that you are able to concentrate on a task with attention. Most employers will expect this, however. Instead of saying you’re ‘focused’, you could talk about how you prioritised certain projects.

Integrating Action Words and Power Verbs Throughout Your CV

While the work history section may be the most natural place to add action verbs in your CV, it’s possible to spread them throughout the document. This can make every section of your CV more powerful. Here are some tips for spreading keywords and phrases through your document:

CV summary

Choose one or two key qualities and achievements to highlight in your summary, and use action verbs to really emphasise your impact. Using strong verbs can also help you keep your summary concise with shorter sentences. For example, instead of writing ‘I worked as part of a team of UX developers’, you could write ‘collaborated with UX developers’.

Education

If you have space to add some bullet points under the listings of your highest or most recent qualifications, you could use some strong verbs in this section. These can help to illustrate your achievements during your studies, such as ‘achieved 84% in my dissertation’, ‘completed a research project’ or ‘participated in a society’.

Skills

It’s useful to add some context to the skills you list in your CV, if space allows in your document. You can utilise action words to show how you learned or used each skill in the workplace, or in another context. For example, ‘developed problem-solving skills by dealing with customer complaints’, or ‘contributed budgeting skills to help cut organisational costs’.

Optional sections

Optional sections for your CV, such as your hobbies and interests or volunteer work, offer further opportunity to add CV action words. Use each section to show how you meet the requirements of the role and fulfill the job description, using strong verbs to show your impact.

Use the STAR technique

To avoid using empty words and phrases in your CV, the STAR technique can help you to tell your story in a more compelling way. Commonly used in interviews, STAR stands for:

• Situation: What was the situation or challenge you faced?
• Task: What was the task you needed to accomplish?
• Action: Which specific actions did you take to deal with the situation or challenge?
• Result: What was the outcome you reached or the result you achieved?

Here’s how to put it all together when describing, for example, your position as a customer support manager:

• Situation: Supervised a customer support team of 5 agents.
• Task: Coordinated efforts to improve e-mail responses to customers.
• Action: Analysed e-mail responses and implemented training for the following problem areas: account management and complaints.
• Result: Reduced complaints by 15% within 2 months.

Power words and action verbs to include in your CV

If you don’t want to sound like everyone else, which words could you use instead to make your CV stand out? The answer is power words and CV action verbs.

Rather than passively describing your responsibilities, power words and action verbs focus on the specific actions you took and the results you achieved. Here are a few to sprinkle throughout your CV:

Achievement

• Exceeded targets by…
• Surpassed goals by…
• Attained x targets…

Research and analysis

• Investigated…
• Tested…
• Evaluated…
• Assessed…

Supporting/developing:

• Advised...
• Coached...
• Mentored...
• Educated…

Leadership:

• Mentored…
• Supervised...
• Trained…
• Oversaw…

Project management:

• Devised...
• Engineered...
• Implemented...
• Spearheaded...

Change/improvement:

• Redesigned...
• Restructured...
• Revamped...
• Transformed...
• Overhauled…

Teamwork:

• Collaborated…
• Liaised…
• Fostered…
• Organised…

Creativity:

• Innovated…
• Invented…
• Designed…
• Developed…
• Customised…

Work ethic:

• Endeavoured…
• Drove…
• Spearheaded…
• Surpassed…

Communication:

• Presented…
• Performed…
• Conveyed…
• Collaborated…

Examples of CVs with and without Power Words

To demonstrate the impact powerful action words can have on your CV, take a look at these examples, before and after adding action verbs:

CV summary before:

CV summary after:

Work experience before:

Work experience after:

Skills before:

Skills after:

Sources:

(1) Metro: These are the most overused and misspelt words on CVs