Words Matter when Marketing Yourself

Your resume is your personal sales sheet. It lists your experience and expertise. It should also excite a potential employer to schedule an interview with you. According to Karen Burns, your resume shouldn't contain tired and trite buzzwords that look professional but read comical.

Karen lists 50 buzzwords to avoid when marketing yourself on a resume because they will "make your resume look like everyone else's" and "they're probably not among the keywords employers search for."

Buzzwords Karen advises us to avoid include:

• Team player
• Detailed-oriented
• Strong negotiation skills
• Results-oriented professional
• Strong work ethic
• Results-focused
• Proven ability
• Motivated

Consider applying the same thinking to the word choices you use in any marketing materials designed to drive awareness and preference with customers. Drop the tired and trite words for those with personality and punch.

Perhaps a visit to Unsuck-It is needed to improve your personal sales sheet and your company's marketing materials.

Comments

[MML]

I'm not sure how "detail-oriented" is a useless buzzword. It's a skill, and when employers contact your previous employer for a background check and you were detail-oriented in your previous job they would mention it.

[john moore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Fine. Have a previous employer tell a prospective employer you are detail-orientated. But, being detail-orientated is a basic skill every employee, requiring a resume to get the job, needs. If its a requirement, why mention it by line listing it. Dig?

[patmcgraw]

John, interesting post but with the heavy reliance by HR departments on scanning software, sometimes drab gets your phone ringing.

[john moore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Pat ... begs for a test scenario, doesn't. Send in a drab resume loaded with buzzwords and compare it against a resume using words with more meaning. Who's phone rings first?

[Lars Nielsen]

Interesting thought;

The problem with the CV is, well... the CV. How relevant are CV's for us in marketing?

I speculate that most of the people reading this blog work in marketing. The task of marketing is to get other people interested in our products, services, brands.. When I hire staff, I hire marketers - people who can sell themselves. If they can't sell themselves, how can they sell the company?

I do't look for a CV, because the person applying would know he is 1 out of 200 to send one. The CV goes in the pile. I am a marketing person so I look for someone doing marketing. Sure the CV may be part of the package, but it is not what gets my attention. Show me some creativity, like a media kit on yourself, a fun phone call, a DM piece... something else. Such is marketing right?

[Marcelle Green]

A great resume highlights accomplishments, especially quantifiable ones: I cut costs by 18%, this direct mail piece out pulled the control piece by 42%, this initiative reduced the sales cycle from an average of 44 days to 19 days. Yes, the person doing the hiring wants to know what your skills are, but what's more important is what you've accomplished with those skills.