Hiring Horror

Here’s how to spin the 6 sucky resume words into skills that sizzle. (Via: Squawkfox)

# Responsible For
# Experienced
# Excellent written communication skills
# Team Player
# Detail Oriented
# Successful

Responsible For: You’re responsible for something. But how many? How long? Who? What? When? Rather than waste the hiring manager’s time reading a vague list of responsibilities, be specific and use quantitative figures to back up your cited skills and accomplishments. Employers want the numerical facts. Write percentages, amounts, and numbers to best explain your accomplishments. Be specific to get the point across quickly. Prove you have the goods to get hired.

So, instead of “Responsible for writing user guides on deadline” and “Responsible for production costs”, it will be better to write “Wrote six user guides for 15,000 users two weeks before deadline” and “Reduced production costs by 15 percent over three months” respectively.

Experienced: It is better to write, “Programmed an online shopping cart for a fortune 500 company in PHP” than just “Experience programming in PHP.” Hiring managers want to know what experience, skills, and qualifications you offer. Do tell them without saying, “I am experienced.”

Excellent written communication skills: Every resume seem to have this magic phrase — “I have excellent written communication skills.” A much better alternative would be something like “Wrote jargon-free online help documentation and reduced customer support calls by 50 percent.” If you’ve got writing skills, do say what you write and how you communicate. Are you writing email campaigns, marketing materials, or user documentation? Are you word smithing legal contracts, business plans, or proposing proposals? However you wrap your words, be sure to give the details.

Team Player: If you want to hit a home run then do explicitly say what teams you play on and qualify the teams’ achievements. So, instead of “Team player working well in large and small groups”, you better say, “Worked with clients, software developers, technical writers, and interface designers to deliver financial reporting software three months before deadline.”

Detail Oriented: If you have the details, do share them with the hiring manager. Give the facts, the numbers, the time lines, the money details, the quantitative data that sells your skills and disorients the competition. Better write “Wrote custom press releases targeting 25 news agencies across Europe.” and not just a para-phrased “Detail oriented public relations professional.”

Successful: Nobody list their failures in resumes. So if everything is a success, then why write them? Stick to showing your success by giving concrete examples of what you’ve done to be successful! Let your skills, qualifications, and achievements speak for you.

(Excerpt from Squawkfox)