Avoiding career clichés is essential to stand out

Avoiding career clichés is essential to stand out in your career and job search.   Using hackneyed clichés makes you look like any other duck swimming in the hiring pond.  

Resumes, LinkedIn profiles, cover letters and other career materials must be unique, bespoke and engaging.   

You need to show not tell!   Demonstrate not state!

Now firstly, my pet cliché peeve.. SEASONED…. grrr….     Unless you are a food group you are not ‘seasoned’.    And frankly it just makes you look old fashioned and a tad lazy.

And everyone is ‘passionate’ about something. Yes its a nice word, but as prevalent as oxygen.    They are as inspiring as wet toast in a cave and won’t do l career brands or job search endeavours any favours.

My sore eyes reading them 

As an ex recruiter, I still keep a bottle of Visine on hand to soothe my long injured eyeballs.  You see my eyes used to fall backwards in my head and get blurry from reading the same trite descriptions that could apply to thousands of other candidates.

You want to sound inspiring and unique, not a carbon copy of any other Tom, Dick or Mary.   It all can start to feel a little like Stepford Wives as vanilla replicas of each other.

The irony of expertise vs application

 It’s quite ironic isn’t it that experts don’t always translate their own chops to themselves.  Hairdressers with horrid hair styles, car mechanics driving bombs, builders living in dumps and financial planners in debt.  I could go on but you get the drift eh.

And as for marketing and creative experts, they can often struggle with writing about themselves, despite communicating their client’s brilliance with unique eloquence.

Look it’s hard to see the label when you are in your own jar.  And if introverted, it can be particularly cumbersome to write a resume or profile with personal pizazz. 

Remember reality statement s are not value judgements so it’s perfectly ok (and indeed imperative) to share what you actually did to back up a statement of claim. 

So time to rejig guys and gals. 

In 2024 the job market is very tight and competition has reached pre COVID times generally.  With the raft of redundancies and company restructures this year it’s more important than ever to stand out.

Duck clichés to ditch

These are the 22 most overused clichés and boring phrases on LinkedIn profiles and resumes.   They can also relay a perception of being lazy, uncreative and even pompous and unaware.  Perception matters and phrases that are over cooked just fall flat.

And using multiple clichés is just a jargon infested word head ache fest.  For example are you really a:

“Determined self motivated problem solver who has excellent written and verbal communication skills” Yawn!  

OR a 

“Seasoned, passionate results driven people person with a proven history who thinks outside the box” Yawn!

1. Excellent written & verbal communication skills
2. People person
3. Results orientated /Results driven
4. Seasoned (can add to ageism) 
5. Highly motivated
6. Team player
7. Love a challenge
8. Bottom line focussed
9. Problem solver
10. Self starter
11. Determined
12. Thinks outside the box
13. Passionate
14. Highly organised
15. Strong attention to detail
16. Exceeded expectations
17. Enthusiastic
18. Hard worker
19. Innovative
20. Thought leader
21. A proven background (or proven anything)
22. Authentic  

How to differentiate  yourself 

Showing not stating is essential on resumes and Linked In profiles. Adding context, stories and examples cut the cloth from banal to exciting. 

Demonstrate your chops (skills) and personality within a narrative not a cliché. Stating without context is like a roast dinner without vegetables – what’s the point!

If you do use any of these cliché you must expand and with more detail and colour and examples.   And always write in the 1^st person not 3^rd.  Keep the 3^rd for bio’s and conferences thanks.

And final tip.  The phrase thought leader is self-proclaimed and thrown around like lollies these days.  It’s for other people to bestow that label not for self proclamation on resumes or LinkedIn,

So go and stand out, demonstrate your chops and show your unique brilliance with flair. No ducks thanks.

And keep that seasoning for your food (except for Peking Duck that is)

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