Are you a motivated employee? Boring! Creative? Yawn! Responsible? We’ve heard it all before! This week, LinkedIn have released a list of the words that are the most abused by their users. Recognise any of them?
In the US, these include:
- Creative
- Organizational
- Effective
- Motivated
- Extensive experience
- Track record
- Innovative
- Responsible
- Analytical
- Problem solving
If you too describe yourself in this way, you will need to find another way to stand out, says Linkedin’s career expert Nicole Williams: “If you want opportunity to come knocking, you’ve got to make your LinkedIn Profile stand out from the pack. Millions of professionals say they’re ‘creative,’ so set yourself apart by describing and linking to projects you’ve worked on that truly were different, unique and compelling. Pointing to concrete examples of the creative work you’ve done is more convincing than simply stating you are a ‘creative’ professional.”
If you’re using these hackneyed words on you online profiles, chances are they are littering your CV and cover letters too, so make sure you give specific examples in each, or crack open that thesaurus! And for those outside the US check out the infographic above; ‘Creative’ isn’t just unoriginal in the US, but across much of the globe – if you really are all that creative, you won’t find it hard to think of a better way to say it!
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I think people think that “creative” means upstage of “clever”.Like every clever people are not creative but every creative people are clever.
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Nice information. Thanks