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Words and Phrases to Remove from Your Resume Right Away

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Including these phrases on your resume will backfire on your job hunt. Here's what you should and shouldn't say.

Anxious to know the words and phrases to remove from your resume right away?

Let’s dive in.

You want to come off like a pro when writing resume, adding the best pictures possible & scouting out best possible ways to highlight your niche.

If you want to impress an employer, avoid filler words that crowd your resume and focus on demonstrating your qualifications.

For instance, instead of describing yourself as “specialized” or an “expert,” list the results you’ve achieved in your field that qualify your expertise.

This is to say you aim to show employers your skills by illustrating them with relevant accomplishments and major contributions.

There are several common words and phrases which you must avoid; they may seem great but at the end bores hiring managers.

Smart people knows that resume writing is all about being clear, concise, and communicating your skill and strengths.

They let go of meaningless overused phrases and industry clichés.

Instead, they let their focus be on writing resume that tells a story, and demonstrate their work experiences and achievements.


Words and Phrases to Remove from Your Resume

Here are five words and phrases you should remove from your resume right away. Viz: –


Self-starter

Many people think using this term will make them look productive, active employee but it doesn’t come across that way.

“Self-starter” is generic, and as a matured person- educated or not, if you have to be motivated before you work then seriously speaking, you are not the right person for the job.

Rather, you should enlist project that shows your leadership or initiative.


Strong work ethic

This is probably one of the most common error found on resume and it should be removed quickly from the skill section of your resume or added to the highlight section.

This is so because strong work ethic is not a skill or an asset. It is compulsorily an expectation of any employee.

So, if you list it as a skill, it shows that you believe that work ethic is optional for some jobs.

Almost all the time, “strong work ethic” is just a space-filler on resumes for people with no other skill to enlist.


Responsibilities and duties

Hiring managers considers boring, a bullet list of all things that you were responsible for.

Rather, employ the use of action verbs that describe your achievements.

Created, supervised, monitored, increased, implemented, launched, etc. are all great ways to show employers you added value to your work.


Detail-oriented

This is another phrase that should be removed quickly from your resume or added to the highlight section because any hiring manager will expect that all candidates they hire pay attention to detail.

Find ways to communicate your skill, catch errors others don’t notice or use your extraordinary abilities to see faults in complex issues.


Energetic, Enthusiasm

These are aura people feel and most times people give sound judgment on what kind of energy we emit out into the universe at any giving time.

While resumes are meant to portray your best qualities, some personality traits are better left to the employer to decide upon for herself.

There is a gap between correctly and accurately describing your work skills and just making unnecessary exaggeration.

As resume experts, we have come across even the most introverted people claiming to be “dynamic” when they write their resumes.

You want to keep your content quantifiable, point out visible results and successes, and wait until the appropriate time of the interview to show off your “energy” or “enthusiasm”.

In conclusion, before you add another bullet point to that resume next time, make do of this fact: it’s not always about what you put in – the best changes you can make may lie in what you strike out- to give your resume a good read, and making sure every word on that 81/2” 11” page is working hard for you.

Please leave a comment below in the section, so that we know if our content has been helpful to you.

Need help with your resume? Our CEOMichaelHR professional resume writers can assist you!

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