If You’re Looking For A Job, Don’t Use These Words

When it comes to selling our skills, we’re all guilty of using a similar set of phrases. Professional networking site LinkedIn analysed over 85 million user profiles to find the most “clichéd words” and “overused phrases” that make potential employers cringe when they read a resume. Breaking it down country-wise, LinkedIn found that in India, the most overused “buzzword” is “dynamic”, which you will also see on a lot of CVs in Brazil and Spain. In the US, Canada and Australia, job seekers try (unsuccessfully, it would seem) to impress employers by stating that they have “extensive experience”.  In the UK, people feel it’s important for employers to know that they’re “motivated”, while in much of Western Europe (France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands), almost everyone claims to be “innovative”. If you’re nodding your head in empathy, this might be a good time to invest in a thesaurus.

While “dynamic” and “extensive experience” have long become clichés, the Plain English Foundation, which is based in Australia, has just released its list of the “worst words and phrases of 2010”. Coming out on top, or perhaps bottom, is the phrase “moving forward”, which was used as the main slogan of the Australian Labor Party’s election campaign. “The problem with a phrase like this is that it hints vaguely at progress without committing to anything concrete,” says the PEF’s executive director Neil James. “Politicians can sound positive without being held to account for breaking a promise.”

Among the nominees for the worst word or phrase of 2010, drawn from a mix of business jargon, “spin-doctoring”, mangled English and teenspeak, were “strategic staircase” (a replacement for the tautological “forward plan”), “removal pathway” (a substitute for “deportation”), “maggoted” (teenager slang for “getting drunk to the point of incapacitation”) and of course “refudiate”, which was infamously coined by American politician Sarah Palin. “The best you can say about these words is that they dress up something simple just to sound impressive,” said James. “At their worst, they are deliberately trying to obscure reality or paper over the unpleasant.”

Did you use one of these 10 most overused buzzwords in your LinkedIn profile this year? [The LinkedInBlog]
The worst and phrases of 2010 [Plain English Foundation]