GETTING RID OF TATTLETALE WORDS IN YOUR RESUME( CONT’ D)
Hardworker and go-getter seem as useless in a résumé or query letter as ambitious. It’ s like tooting your own horn. The person reading it might ask,“ Who says?”
Overblown adjectives. Words like exciting and amazing— even when they describe results or projects— are anathema. They have the same problem as hardworking above. I call this the awesome syndrome. They are words that tempt a reader to scoff. Instead tell a story about the extra effort you put into a project and the difference it made. Or quote one of the rave reviews you received from one of your supervisors in a periodic assessment, recommendation, or endorsement.
Team player has been a cliché for decades. Instead choose a group project you’ ve worked on and tell about your contributions. Or just list some of the ways you might have helped another department or division. And, because human brains have been wired for stories since we sat around the fires we made in caves, make it into an anecdote if you can. If you don’ t believe me, you might read Nina Amir’ s book Wired for Story( bit. ly / Wired4Story) published by Writers’ Digest. I recommend other books by this author in the Recommended Reading section of the Index in my How to Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethically: The ins and outs of using free reviews to build and sustain a writing career( bit. ly / GreatBkReviews). Think out-of-the-box is also a cliché-ridden no-no. It’ s storytelling time again Microsoft Word. I’ m proud that I can produce an entire book using Word from its Contents to its Index to its Footnotes. I love that I don’ t have to spend time learning another program. But there’ s no point in telling people that I’ m an expert at Word. Everyone is. Of course, I can use it prove another point like how well I have managed to adapt its features to new, advanced project and tell how much time I saved by doing that rather than learning a new program. I might mention how much more professional it looked even as I saved that time. And I might mention that my project got rave reviews. Oh, yeah. I might mention how many actual dollars were save because— after all— time is money.
Some frequently used words like synergy have become a way to insert some humor into a résumé and that has become as much of a cliché as the overuse of the word. Marco Buscaglia picked this word out of the hundred( if not thousands) of popular words I call business-ese. You can avoid them by reviewing your copy and purging anything that sounds officious including most words with more than three syllables.
Think in terms of relationships, colleagues in other departments, associates
WINTER 2017
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