Resume Cliches to Avoid
© Ugur Akinci
When writing a resume either stay away from cliche phrases or explain exactly what you mean by them.
Cliche expressions used at face value, without any further details, will fail to impress your potential employer. Without any details, your resume will not stand out among the competition and will be DOA (Dead On Arrival).
Here are a few such over-used expressions and how you can fix them:
“I am a team-player.”
Yes, but what kind of team you had been on? What was your role, position? And what specific actions you undertook to make sure your team would be successful in whatever it was doing?
A concrete example:
“As Session Facilitator in critical RFP planning meetings, I made sure that the conversations and decisions were recorded correctly. By distributing such meeting minutes to the whole team promptly, I’ve made sure that every team member was kept abreast of the developments. Sharing such accurate meeting information facilitated a better mode of decision making. During the two years I worked at XYZ company, we won three out of four RFP proposals we submitted to the federal government.”
“I have a strong work-ethic.”
What does this mean exactly? What specific actions you undertook and/or which awards/recognitions you have garnered to back up that claim?
A concrete example:
“As the manager, I opened the store promptly at 7:30 each morning, six days a week. Three times a week, I led my sales team in a meeting that assessed progress vis-à-vis corporate goals. I showed up for an important conference to present a critical product launch only 48 hours after I gave birth to my second daughter. During the six years I worked for XYZ corporation, I took no sick-leave and only 4 hours of personal leave for family emergency.”
“I am a problem-solver.”
Really? Which problems have you solved? And how significant were the problems and the solutions? What difference did they make for your company?
A concrete example:
“When our printing costs exceeded 47% of our allotted printing budget, I developed a simple plan to change the paper and ink stock, on the one hand, and to re-outline our user manuals to reduce the page count, on the other. Such a simple solution reduced our printing costs by 50% within 9 months.”
GOLDEN RULE: Provide specific numbers whenever possible.
“I am a self-starter and fast-learner.”
What did you exactly do to earn that characterization?
A concrete example:
“When I arrived at XYZ Corporation back in 2002, nobody knew how to get rid of the old servers and install new ones. Since I also did not know much about servers, I gathered a team of retired and current SMEs while enrolling in a night-class on server architecture. Within two weeks I gained enough knowledge to ask my consultants to put together a cost-cutting proposal with three options for a new server system. When I left the company four years later, I was in charge of 36 server locations spread across three continents and 8 countries.”
