I critique a lot of resumes and I see a common theme. Most look like they were copied out of a book, or are just badly written to begin with. Amateur writers make the mistake of overusing certain words. Here’s my list of words & phrases that WON’T make your document stand out from the rest.

1. SUCCESSFULLY did this or that. Of course you did. Tell me by how much instead and what the end result was.

2. RESPONSIBLE FOR. This is the most boring phrase on your resume. We all have job responsibilities. The question is… were those responsibilities fulfilled? What was the result?

3. DUTIES INCLUDE. See #2.

4. OBJECTIVE. Yes the objective is for you to find a job. But the truth is, no one cares about your needs. The reader cares what you can do for them. Use an attention grabbing headline statement instead.

5. MANAGED. I see this one repeated over and over. Pull out a thesaurus and you’ll find great synonyms including directed, led, supervised, championed, spearheaded, controlled, guided, etc.