with experience. Responsible. Successful.
These are the words job seekers use most often in resumes and cover letters to describe themselves, according to a new study. They’re also among the words that US job applicants most often ask for help spelling—and misspelled resumes can end up in the trash.
“Typographic and grammatical errors will stop your resume from going anywhere every time,” said Michele Swift, senior instructor and assistant director of the School of Management, Entrepreneurship and Supply Chain at Oregon State University’s (OSU) College of Business. .
Swift, the recipient of the 2022 SHRM Foundation Student Chapter Advisor Impact Award, regularly gives presentations on resume preparation to OSU’s Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) student chapter.
That’s why it’s so important, she stressed, to “test, test, test” your resume.
E-learning platform Preply created a list of more than 150 American English words and phrases that job hunters often use on resumes, then checked Indeed’s database of US resumes to analyze how many times each word appeared on the resume in the past six months. Preply also looked at average monthly Google search data to determine which resume keywords drove people in the US to search for spelling guidance.
| With experience | With experience |
| Successful | Successful |
| Suggested | Suggested |
| responsible | Responsible |
| professional | professional |
| followed | Successfully |
| Trusted | sure |
| Inspired | Inspired |
| ENDED | Achieved |
| Educated | Educated |
| Focused | Focused |
| Independent | Independent |
| management | management |
| Tough | taught |
Source: August 2022 research by Preply, an e-learning platform. | |
Job hunters also want to highlight their personalities, Preply found, with the characterizations of being “friendly” and “outgoing” appearing on 1.6 million and 860,000 resumes, respectively.
Resume tips
“Perhaps the most important thing one should remember when working on a resume [is that] Their resume should be tailored to each job they apply for,” Swift said. “This means reading the job posting thoroughly and making sure [their] The CV includes achievements related to the responsibilities and qualifications listed in the job advertisement.”
She noted that expectations of how to format a resume vary by field and profession.
“For example, banking tends to be a little more traditional, while a job in advertising or marketing might want to see a little creativity,” she said.
[SHRM members-only resource: Career Launch: Resume Templates]
Swift and Yolanda del Peso, Preply Marketing Specialist, shared the following resume tips for students:
Include keywords or key phrases. “You want to make sure your resume shows up in an applicant tracking system search,” Swift advised. Use language from the job description, including specific words and phrases.
Start your sentences with strong action verbsdel Peso recommended in a media release of Preply’s findings.
For example, “answered customer complaints” could be reworded to say “managed customer complaints”.
Provide specific evidence of skills and achievements. “When possible, try to quantify the accomplishments,” del Paso said. Instead of saying you’ve developed a large Twitter presence, write “Twitter account grew by 3k followers in the second quarter.”
Include extracurricular activities. “Some of these activities, especially those where a student took a leadership role, may be where the student gained skills and accomplishments related to the job they’re applying for,” Swift said.
Avoid unnecessary adjectives or adverbs. Rewrite “skillfully negotiated contracts,” to “negotiated contracts,” for example, del Paso advised.
Keep your CV to one page. “Most students should keep it to one page, but those with more experience can go to one page — but no more than two pages,” Swift said.
