Now that we have your attention, we need to come clean and admit that we might have exaggerated a tiny bit. Perhaps this tip won’t be that amazing, but it’s still pretty good.
We gave it the snazzy title to illustrate our real lesson for the day. No doubt, you have surfed the web and had your attention grabbed by clickbait headlines like the following:
- 21 Celebs Who’ve Grown Into Horrible-Looking Creatures
- Her Dress at the Oscars Will Be Spoken About for Centuries
- “Useless” Organ That Doctors Often Remove May Actually Fight Cancer
- 20+ Ridiculously Cool Gifts You’ll Want to Buy Immediately
- 20 Movies that are so Good, They’re Considered Perfect
Let’s face it, sometimes our temptation gets the better of us and we click even when we know we shouldn’t. And then we immediately regret that decision because we’ve been directed to a website that bombards us with a litany of annoying ads and a less-than-amazing junk article scattered among those ads. And before you know it, you just lost 5-10 minutes of your life that you aren’t getting back.
Why do we bring this up? Think of exaggerated adjectives and adverbs on your resume as internet clickbait. You might get some naïve person’s attention, only for them to be let down when they probe deeper. For example, can you really defend that you completed a 10-month project flawlessly? That would imply that absolutely nothing went wrong at all.
In the past, we provided a list of words that we like to see on a resume. So we thought it made sense to follow that up with some words that may hurt your resume. Here are some of the more problematic descriptors to avoid:
- flawless
- amazing
- incredible
- perfect
- unprecedented
- astonishing
- staggering
- spectacular
- unbelievable
- astounding
- extraordinary
- stupendous.
This is not an exhaustive list, but you get the point.
Here’s the reality: Hiring managers and recruiters don’t have the time or patience to wade through exaggerated and superfluous language. If you did something truly amazing, then let the results speak for themselves. And if you can make those results stand out by quantifying them (which you should always strive to do), you won’t need hyperbole to convince them. Crafting your accomplishments with matter-of-fact results will allow you to brag without going over the top.