You may have read from our guide the importance of using the correct keywords, especially when it comes to listing your skills and how your experience has shaped you as a professional. Keywords are an essential part of knowing how to describe your skills effectively.
To help, this article will take you through what keywords are, some examples of keywords, some of the ways in which you can use keywords in the various parts of your CV. With the use of keywords your CV will be more than adequate for conveying the skills you have for the workplace.
What are buzzwords or keywords in a resume?
Using keywords correctly helps us highlight the most important information related to our professional trajectory. They also make this information more attractive and accessible to the recruiter. Choosing the right keywords helps differentiate our CV from the competition.
Generally you can separate these keywords, buzzwords or active verbs into categories :
- Words to express your personal development in a company.
- Words to display your skill set relating to management and direction of a project.
- Key words to show your financial skill set.
- Active words to show off your creative skills.
Examples of keyword adjectives in a CV
For using keyword adjectives, you need to ask yourself how you would describe the skills you used in your professional life.
You can use words such as :
Flexible
Listener
Coordinator
Diplomatic
Autonomous
Observant
Analytical
Energetic
Concise
Examples of keyword verbs in your CV
Keyword verbs are used in conjunction with your professional experience. Instead of using banal nouns or complicated sentences to describe your competences you can use these active verbs for your CV.
Active verbs are ideal to specify what your contribution was to previous jobs and the skills acquired. They also help you avoid the passive voice which on a CV does not read well.
Example of active verbs include :
Developed
Facilitated
Implemented
Negotiated
Established
Generated
Researched
Mentored
They key is to make sure your verbs are dynamic and present an accurate and positive way you have of promoting yourself. You should also look to include them in bullet point format in your professional experience section rather than in prose.
What are the banned words in resume?
Do not try to include words like impatient that are best employed when describing your strengths and weaknesses.
There are also some keywords that are simply overused by now to have an effect. Examples include :
- Detail-orientated : unless you can prove this its worth nothing. Most people will say they are specialised and thus detail-orientated.
- “Experience working in “ : This doesn’t explain what you were actually doing. Use active verbs to specify what your task was during this work experience.
- Think outside the box : an overused cliche that should be avoided.
- Results driven : also overused by people with very little creativity
- Team player : you must demonstrate this through your experience more than anything.