The Pongo Blog
Resume Buzzword Bingo: A Game You Don't Want to Win
July 12, 2010 (3:55PM) by Julie O'Malley, CPRW
"I'll be around for questions at lunchtime. Leverage me." That's an actual statement I heard with my own ears at a conference I attended in Boston last week. Leverage me? How would one do that, exactly? It made me wish I'd brought a Buzzword Bingo card in case they started throwing in paradigms and granulars and best of breeds. (If you've never heard of Buzzword Bingo, learn all about it here.) Fortunately, the rest of the talk was really informative and relatively free of corporate-speak, so I forgave the leverage infraction.
Anyway, that got me thinking about resume buzzwords, and I realized there ought to be a Resume Buzzword Bingo card, too. So just for fun, I took my idea to our in-house Graphic Designer Extraordinaire and asked him to turn my list of common resume terms and clichés into a bingo card.
Since he's an experienced, results-focused, detail-oriented team player with good computer skills and a proven track record of having a passion for out-of-the-box thinking, he quickly came up with this highly creative design in our fast-paced, deadline-driven environment:
Click to enlarge and print your own
Resume Buzzword Bingo Card!
Job seekers can use the Resume Buzzword Bingo Card to check that their resumes aren't overloaded with hackneyed phrases and unproven claims.
HR people, recruiters, and hiring managers can use it to have some fun while sorting through stacks of resume submissions.
It's not that buzzwords are inherently evil; every resume will contain a few of them. But as a job seeker, you never want to become that guy, the one whose resume is so saturated with unproven claims that your readers could fill every square on their Bingo Cards twice over!
Can you think of other resume buzzwords we should add to the card? Post them in a comment below!
RELATED LINKS
If You Say it in the Resume, Prove it in the Interview
Take the 'Cupcakes' Out of Your Resume
Critique Your Resume Like a Hiring Manager
You have DEMONSTRATED such a HIGHLY SKILLED and VERY INNOVATIVE PIECE OF WORK that even my RESULT ORIENTED and PROCESS DRIVEN BENT OF MIND is feeling OVERWHELMED. tnkx, Amit Kumar Bhola
Posted by: Amit | July 21, 2010 at 2:54 PM | Quote This Comment
global visionary able to drill down to the granular level
able to incentivize resources at all levels and uncover unused bandwidth in work units
highly skilled at cascading information to resources at all levels
Posted by: Shirley Ledgerwood | July 22, 2010 at 4:57 PM | Quote This Comment
@Amit and @ Shirley
Those are awesome! You should both stand up and proudly shout BINGO!
I love the phrase unused bandwidth in reference to people (or rather, work units )!
Thanks for the chuckles!!!
Julie
Posted by: Julie O'Malley | July 22, 2010 at 5:06 PM | Quote This Comment
I have used a few of these phrases. What would you say instead of leadership skills or quick learner? These phrases have been read and heard a lot throughout the years. Now my brain automatically thinks of them although i can see how leadership skills can be too broad. Still stuck on how to convey to someone that you learn things quickly.
Posted by: Tone Smith | July 24, 2010 at 3:05 AM | Quote This Comment
@Tone
The trick is to give EXAMPLES or EVIDENCE to prove that you have those skills, rather than just claiming them and expecting them to trust you.
Instead of just saying you have leadership skills, you could say something that proves it, such as:
"Led 12-person department that consistently met quarterly production goals"
Instead of just saying you're a quick learner, you might say:
"Mastered XYZ Database program within first week on job and was leading training classes after two months"
Hope that helps clarify! Thanks for commenting!
Julie
Posted by: Julie O'Malley | July 24, 2010 at 5:54 PM | Quote This Comment