Résumé clichés to avoid at all costs

During the hiring process, recruiters or hiring managers come across all kinds of résumés: the good, the bad and the ugly, as we discovered when decoding résumé jargon . While you hope that there will be more in the good section than the others, the rise of common clichés appearing on résumés often puts paid to that. It seems that in a bid to stand out from the crowd, many job-hunters use language and clichés that don’t translate as well to prospective employees as they’d hope, instead making them stand out for less appealing reasons.

With this in mind, our latest infographic offers hints and tips for job-hunters about clichés and jargon to avoid when writing a résumé, and pinpoints the phrases that should set off alarm bells for recruiters or hiring managers. For example, while words like ‘synergy’ or ‘interfaced’ might sound good in your head, they’re best left off the résumé, as they can be seen as too abstract. Other phrases include ‘go-getter’, ‘hard working’ and ‘think outside the box’. To find out why, and to discover what you should be saying or looking for instead, take a look at the infographic below.