What are the words you use to describe yourself on your resume, on LinkedIn or on your own website? Well, LinkedIn did a year-end survey that revealed the most used words.
Question: Are these the words that you use when portraying yourself as a professional?
- Creative? (most used adjective for the past two years)
- Responsible? (this year’s winner!!)
- Positive?
- Strategic?
- Patient?
- Driven?
- Analytical?
- Expert?
- Effective?
- Innovative?
- Dynamic?
These words are rather meaningless as everyone can claim it, but can’t be proven on a resume. Nor can these words be measured against performance. How do you demonstrate “driven”?
Match these words against what hiring organizations are looking for in a candidate:
- Results
- Performance
- Team
- Solutions
- Problem-solver
- Revenue-generator
- Cost-eliminator
- Measureable
- Growth
These words can be proven with examples or numbers on your resume.
The first sets of words are subjective or are relative to any number of judgments. The second sets of words are objective when coupled with actual events or outcomes.
As an example, do you see the difference between these two descriptors?:
“Creative and driven professional looking for a position that needs a responsible and successful contributor who is a dynamic innovator”, or …
“A team player who increased revenue 12% while reducing costs 8% by assessing issues preventing results with documented short and long term solutions”.
If you were a hiring manager, which one would you want to interview?
Contact Bill Kaufmann as a coach. Send questions or your resume for a free evaluation to: mygreenerfuture1@cox.net Check Bill’s e-book: http://www.createspace.com/3884487