This Guest paper was submitted for publication in June 2020.
It is copyright to Donald Fomby.
Published here September 2020.

Introduction | Buzzwords and Graphics | References and Personal Characteristics 
Hobbies and School Related | Personal Information | Final Thoughts

Buzzwords and Graphics

2.   Avoid Buzzwords

You might think that your resume does not have such things, but wait till you see the list! Understanding industry terms, apps, jargon, and trends is a good skill to have, but you can easily overplay it.

Here's what a CEO of a recruiting company had to share in a recent interview:

"Don't go overboard with buzzwords — we can tell. Recruiters and employers want your personality to shine — not your ability to throw out words and phrases."

Besides, a recruiter might not have the same experience in project management as you do, so he or she may not understand those fancy words and phrases. So, check out your resume for buzzwords like:

  • scalable. It might introduce some vagueness because can also apply to other business areas like resources.
  • mission-critical. This refers to a critical project part that can't be removed. This is a priority for everyone, so succeeding with achieving those is a given for a good project manager.
  • synergy. This is a buzzword that has been used by professionals in many areas. Recruiters don't appreciate it because "synergy" is too vague and can have a negative meaning.
  • deliverables. A redundancy that should be replaced with specifics, e.g. instead of writing "helped with achieving deliverables," you should write "helped with achieving a 5 percent increase in ROI."

The list also includes words like jump the shark, paradigm shift, scope creep, agile, lean, gap analysis, and it goes on and on.

If you'd like to check your resume for buzzwords, just give it to a person who has no experience in project management. Have them read your draft and ask them to replace the words they find confusing or unclear.

3.   Graphics and Visuals

Those might look good in a graphics designer's resume, but not in a project manager's resume. They:

  • clutter up your resume unnecessarily;
  • make it difficult to print out the resume;
  • take up valuable space you should use for more useful information to recruiters.

For example, it might be tempting to include a graphic showing your impact on a project's performance, but it will surely take up at least 10 percent of the entire resume space. Besides, it's something that you probably can summarize in one or two sentences. In any case, that may be worth saving for your interview.

If you think that there's too much information to summarize, keep in mind that there are online writing tools like Topessaywriting or Trustmypaper. Ask professional writers to help and they'll make sure that you have a one-page, concise, on-point resume, which is exactly what recruiters are looking for. So, you don't need to demonstrate your ability to include graphics because recruiters simply don't need them. They're looking for information that can help to get to know you and your experience in project management.

That's why the only image in your resume should be your photo!

Introduction  Introduction

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