Career Advice

Former recruitment agency experts answer employment questions, candidly suggesting how to negotiate your salary, find a really good job, handle phone interviews, and more.

Sage advice like this is priceless.

Words Not to Include In Your Resume


For maximum impact, keep your resume as concise as possible. You only have one to two pages to fit all your information onto so don't waste space on meaningless words. Plus, an employer doesn't want to spend time trying to understand vague phrases or decipher confusing jargon.

Avoid Vague Words:
An employer won't know what you did if the wording on your resume is too vague. Words like "assist," "contribute" and "support" all beg the question: Exactly how did you assist, contribute or support a person or project?

Quantify Your Acheivements:
Don't just use words like "successfully" or effectively" to show an employer that you're a good worker. Your resume will be more impressive if you give concrete examples of what you've done and how you're been successful.

Your resume will have more impact if you quantify your accomplishments. For example, use figures to show how much you increased revenues or reduced costs. State the number of people you managed or the amount of the budget you oversaw.

Avoid Buzzwords:
Don't use overly fancy words. Some people fo this to try to sound intelligent or qualified, but you are more likely to annoy or confuse your reader. An employer isn't going to spend time looking up words in a dictionary to discover what you really did at your last job.

Avoid buzzwords that have become cliché. "Synergy" and "liaise" are examples of buzzwords that have been overused and abused.