Candidates, you have got to stop using these words in job applications
In my decade or so of coal-face hiring, I’ve seen hundreds of versions of the following paragraph:
I am a highly proactive individual with extremely good communication skills. I am passionate about [industry/function] and I believe I possess the right skills and experience for this position. I would relish the opportunity to discuss the role further.
Hundreds.
When I see this on a job application, my heart sinks for the candidate. I also feel relief. When you’ve already read through 250 why-I’m-perfect-for-this-role personal statements, one that’s this obviously half-baked — because it matches 50 other applications to the same role almost verbatim — makes it easy for you: you can send it straight to the slush pile while reaching for your headache relief of choice.
Following a recent, oversubscribed hiring process, I can’t get these candidates off my mind. I keep thinking about how they’ve been failed by whoever has instructed them (or failed to instruct them) in the art of appealing to a prospective employer. How people brimming with talent, enthusiasm and creativity are overlooked for rare opportunities because no one’s given them the tools to make themselves stand out — and sadly, employers can’t do it for them¹.
So, in the full knowledge that I’m about to make my own job about 50% harder during hiring periods, I’ve prepared you a list. Good luck.
Recruiters hate her! Supercharge your applications by cutting out these weird words & phrases
1. Highly
This is one of those words that has crept into job applications and appears to have just stuck, despite being not nearly so common outside this context. I suspect it’s because, in the UK at least, it’s not really the done thing to unironically sell oneself, so when pressed we go about it in just the most clunky, awkward way possible.
If you wouldn’t use a word naturally when talking out loud about yourself, leave it out.
2. Extremely
Most people are not extremely anything, and thank heaven for that. I also file this one under ‘awkward self-promotion’, but it’s used so commonly in job applications that it’s just more noise and fluff for the hiring manager to cut through.
3. Individual
Listen to yourself. Do you ever, ever, ever refer to yourself as an “individual” (as a synonym for “person”) when you’re talking to anyone in real life? Of course you don’t. It’s weird, and again, it’s a signal that you’re at once trying too hard with the self-promotion, and not hard enough, because everyone else is using it in exactly the same uncomfortable way.
Really, there’s really no need to point out that you’re a person at all. It sounds like protesting too much (“Dear sirs, I would love to hear more about the sausage factory floor manager position, and I’m definitely not three dogs stacked in a trench coat if that’s what you’re thinking”). If you must adorn yourself with adjectives, it’s okay just to say that you are those things…
Dear sirs, I would love to hear more about the sausage factory floor manager position, and I’m definitely not three dogs stacked in a trench coat if that’s what you’re thinking
…but it’s even better if you can use your covering letter to show the reader what you are. Instead of claiming “I am extremely organised”, you can say “I take pleasure in finding order in things, and often find myself creating systems to improve efficiency.” Give an example. There, you’ve got my attention.
4. Passion/passionate
This feckin’ word.
The cult of workism would have you offer up your lifeblood to the career gods, and a lot of employer brands & thinkpieces encourage the view that you must love what you do (or you’ll be taken round the back and shot).
A few years ago I was hiring an office assistant. A promising candidate had her final interview with the COO and I checked in with him afterwards about how it had gone. His pained reply: “I’m not sure. She says she’s passionate about filing, and I’m not sure what’s worse: if she’s lying, or if she’s telling the truth.”
‘Passion’ comes from the Latin patior — to hurt, to suffer. The tango is a passionate dance because it represents the maddening pain of romantic love. Football fans share passion for their team because of the collective grief they experience when things are going badly for them. You are probably not passionate about producing monthly income statements in a timely manner.
If you wouldn’t tell someone on a date that you’re passionate about [thing], don’t say it in a job application.
Passion is not always inappropriate — if you’re a human rights lawyer, say, or looking to work in disaster relief. To keep yourself right, follow this rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t tell someone on a date that you’re passionate about [thing], don’t say it in a job application.
5. I believe
If you didn’t believe you were well suited to this position, or had at least some of the requisite skill set, then I wouldn’t be reading your application. There’s no need to make a manifesto out of it. The same goes for anything you hold to be true: it’s just too grandiose a word for most roles.
6. I possess
Another baffling one that’s used in about ⅓ of the personal statements I read but very rarely elsewhere. I attribute this one to the fact that most people haven’t been given any instruction on job applications since school, or perhaps a government programme, where much older adults with little training or experience offer outdated advice. This often includes the notion that extra syllables make a person sound smarter. They don’t.
7. Relish the opportunity
I am begging you not to make me read this phrase again.
Special mention!
Proactive, self-starter, hard-working, good/excellent/exceptional written communication skills and also verbal communication skills; working well both on your own and as part of a team (you dynamic, versatile enigma, you!).
Okay, smartypants, what should I do instead?
You can only ever be confident that you have one thing that all the other candidates don’t: you are completely, exactly and only you. Your neurons have wired together in a way that nobody else’s have; the sum of your experiences and learnings is unique to you. Use that.
I would never condescend to tell you to “be yourself”, not least because most people’s self-awareness is rudimentary at best. Contrary to prevailing advice, you also don’t have to completely redo your CV and application for each role you apply to: in this job market, you’d never get anything else done. Consider, though, trying to make your application sound like you, and making sure you at least appear to be addressing that particular hiring manager at that particular company. This means carefully setting the tone as well as watching your language. And where you can, try to show over telling.
One friend makes a voice recording about why she wants a job and how she fits the bill for it, then compares it with her draft cover letter so it flows naturally.
All this obviously won’t get you every job — it will select you out of ones with which you’re incompatible for starters, and that’s a good thing — but it will help to secure you the right one.
Heckle me below! Meanwhile, I look forward to cutting my sleeping hours in half in order to properly analyse all the brilliant applications I see going forward. Oh God.
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¹There is a wider conversation to be had about how unnecessary the covering letter/personal statement is since the advent of task-based, blind recruitment SaaS such as the fantastic BeApplied. However, companies using these are still a tiny minority, so my argument stands.
