Career Corner: Sell yourself with key words and phrases
Too often in federal resumes, I see lazy language that might as well come with its own snooze button, because it could put hiring managers to sleep. Your resume won't scream, "Hire me!" if it's laden with words and phrases like "maintained utilization of a number of standard operating procedures by means of complying with ongoing policy initiatives."
Last week, I gave you some basic tips for writing a resume in plain English. I advised you to write in the active voice, use short sentences with lots of pronouns and include lots of lists. This week, I'm going to give you a list of key words and phrases that can add life to your resume and show hiring officials, in technicolor, what an asset you would be to their organization.
I found these buzz words repeated over and over in documents from Vice President Al Gore's National Partnership for Reinventing Government. Federal agencies that are involved in the reinvention process use these words and phrases in their job announcements, their mission statements, and in the daily management of their operations.
Add them to your federal resume, knowledge, skills and abilities statements, executive core qualification descriptions and cover letters. They show you're not only hip to today's federal management environment, they also convey the message that you're an action-oriented professional.
| Verbs | Adjectives and Adverbs | Nouns and Phrases |
| Achieve (goals) | Aggressive | Common sense |
| Build | Budget-conscious | Comprehensive review |
| Challenge | Carefully (planned) | Customer service plan |
| Charge (take charge) | Cooperatively | Effective measurement techniques |
| Collaborate | Cost-saving | Elimination (of the problem) |
| Cut (red tape) | Creative | Flexibility |
| Develop | Effective | Integrated team |
| Empower | Efficient | Labor-Management partnerships |
| Foster (innovations) | Enthusiastically (supported) | Overall results |
| Identify (priorities) | Quickly (followed up) | Partnership with industry |
| Improve (customer service) | Successful | Performance measurement |
| Reinvent (processes) | Systematically | Reforms |
| Relieve (the paperwork burden) | Timely (data) | Solutions |
| Set (specific goals) | User-friendly | Sophisticated analyses |
| Transform | Visionary | Standards |
Remember, your resume's focus must be on accomplishments and results, not merely a description of duties and responsibilities that you performed. Furthermore, you must describe accomplishments in dynamic terms. Don't just write about your experience; describe the difference that you made while acquiring that experience.
Thinking about the words you use to describe yourself will help you write a resume that people want to read.
Kathryn Kraemer Troutman has been the president of The Resume Place, Inc. for 27 years. Kathryn helps people get promoted and change jobs. She is the pioneer designer of the new "federal resume." She wrote and published the first book on federal resume writing and is a popular resume writing workshop leader in government.
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The Resume Place is a full-service job search center specializing in writing, editing and designing custom personal marketing materials, including various resume formats: Federal (including KSAs and ECQs), Resumix, Private Industry, Career Change, Marketing, and Executive Portfolios. President Kathryn Troutman has written four books on resume writing, is an expert resume-writing trainer, and is webmaster for the popular Web site: www.resume-place.com.
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