Resume writing is an art — or, depending on who you ask, it's a science. You have to highlight your achievements is palpable ways, mirror the language of job descriptions and keep it to no more than two pages to ensure hiring managers consider you a serious candidate.
And there are certain words and phrases that jobseekers should avoid, like filler words. These are "words that are taking up extra space and are not necessarily helping you tell your story more clearly," says Amanda Augustine, a career expert at TopResume.
Pronouns and adverbs fall into this category, and though they don't make your resume stronger, many people are still using them. Nearly half, 44% of resumes contain 10 or more filler words, according to resume writing site Kickresume, which recently analyzed more than 170,000 resumes written in 2022.
If you're diving into creating your own resume, here are eight filler words to avoid.
- I, me, we
- Frequently
- Efficiently
- Diligently
- Thoroughly
- Quickly
Hiring managers know the person whose experience is being described on your resume is you. Pronouns like "I," "me" and "we" are redundant and superfluous. "You write it as though it is in first person," says Augustine, "but you remove all those pronouns and what you're left with is a more succinct narrative of what you've done."
When it comes to the above adverbs, like "thoroughly" and "quickly," they leave the reader wondering, where's the proof?
"If you say you did something efficiently or diligently, well, what was it about that that was diligent or efficient? What did you do?" says Octavia Goredema, career coach and author of "PREP, PUSH, PIVOT." Did you create a workflow that cut the time it took you and your team to complete a project in half? Were you able to consistently exceed your goals? Whatever it is you accomplished, find quantifiable ways to describe it to give a clear and powerful sense of your success on the job.
Instead of saying "frequently went over goals with my team," say "led weekly team meetings outlining previous week's projects and forthcoming collaborations," for example.
If you're using powerful action verbs like "improved" and supporting them with the numerical scope of your achievements, says Goredema, "you can't lose."
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