Chapter 10

Wow Words Work Wonders

In This Chapter

Wow words: Action verbs that sell you

Keywords: Nouns that sell you

Resume grammar: Simple rules that sell you

Resume spelling: Simple tips that sell you

Words: How powerful they are. It doesn’t take many of them to change the world: The Lord’s Prayer has 66 words, Lincoln’s Gettysburg address numbers just 286 words, and the U.S. Declaration of Independence contains but 1,322 words.

Winston Churchill needed only two words to bind Russia to the Iron Curtain. A brief four words memorialized Martin Luther King’s vision: I have a dream. And in a single sentence, John F. Kennedy set the challenge for a generation: Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

Words are powerful — big words like motherland and environmentalism and small words like peace and war or dawn, family, hope, love, and home. Words are pegs to hang your qualifications on. Words are the power that lifts you above the faceless crowd and sets you in Good Fortune’s way. The right words can change your life.

Begin your hunt for the right words to build an OnTarget resume, from action verbs and keyword nouns, to grammar and spelling tips.

Wow words are action verbs describing your strengths: improve, upgrade, schedule. Keywords are usually nouns demonstrating essential skills: technology transfers, PhD organic chemistry, multinational marketing. A smattering of both can make your resume stand up and sing. An absence of either can make your resume sit down and shut up.

Wow Words Can Bring Good News

Use lively, energetic verbs to communicate your abilities and accomplishments. The important thing is to choose words of substance and power that zero in on what you’re selling.

Try not to use the same word twice on your resume — an online thesaurus, such as Thesaurus.com, can give you a range of possibilities.

Take a look at the Wow words that follow and check off those words that are authentic for you:

Wow words for administration and management

advised	initiated	prioritized
approved	inspired	processed
authorized	installed	promoted
chaired	instituted	recommended
consolidated	instructed	redirected
counseled	integrated	referred
delegated	launched	reorganized
determined	lectured	represented
developed	listened	responded
diagnosed	managed	reviewed
directed	mediated	revitalized
disseminated	mentored	routed
enforced	moderated	sponsored
ensured	monitored	streamlined
examined	motivated	strengthened
explained	negotiated	supervised
governed	originated	taught
guided	oversaw	trained
headed	pioneered	trimmed
influenced	presided	validated

Wow words for communications and creativity

acted	edited	proofread
addressed	enabled	publicized
arranged	facilitated	published
assessed	fashioned	realized
authored	formulated	reconciled
briefed	influenced	recruited
built	initiated	rectified
clarified	interpreted	remodeled
composed	interviewed	reported
conducted	introduced	revitalized
constructed	invented	scheduled
corresponded	launched	screened
costumed	lectured	shaped
created	modernized	stimulated
critiqued	performed	summarized
demonstrated	planned	taught
designed	presented	trained
developed	produced	translated
directed	projected	wrote

Wow words for sales and persuasion

arbitrated	judged	purchased
catalogued	launched	realized
centralized	lectured	recruited
consulted	led	reduced
dissuaded	liaised	reported
documented	maintained	repositioned
educated	manipulated	researched
established	marketed	resolved
expedited	mediated	restored
familiarized	moderated	reviewed
identified	negotiated	routed
implemented	obtained	saved
improved	ordered	served
increased	performed	set goals
influenced	planned	sold
inspired	processed	solved
installed	produced	stimulated
integrated	promoted	summarized
interpreted	proposed	surveyed
investigated	publicized	translated

Wow words for technical ability

analyzed	expedited	operated
broadened	fabricated	packaged
charted	facilitated	pioneered
classified	forecast	prepared
communicated	formed	processed
compiled	generated	programmed
computed	improved	published
conceived	increased	reconstructed
conducted	inspected	networked
coordinated	installed	reduced
designed	instituted	researched
detected	integrated	restored
developed	interfaced	revamped
devised	launched	streamlined
drafted	lectured	supplemented
edited	maintained	surveyed
educated	marketed	systematized
eliminated	mastered	trained
excelled	modified	upgraded
expanded	molded	wrote

Wow words for office support

adhered	distributed	managed
administered	documented	operated
allocated	drafted	ordered
applied	enacted	organized
appropriated	enlarged	packaged
assisted	evaluated	planned
assured	examined	prepared
attained	executed	prescribed
awarded	followed up	processed
balanced	formalized	provided
budgeted	formulated	recorded
built	hired	repaired
charted	identified	reshaped
completed	implemented	resolved
contributed	improved	scheduled
coordinated	installed	screened
cut	instituted	searched
defined	justified	secured
determined	liaised	solved
dispensed	maintained	started

Wow words for teaching

acquainted	designed	influenced
adapted	developed	informed
advised	directed	initiated
answered	dispensed	innovated
apprised	distributed	installed
augmented	educated	instituted
briefed	effected	instructed
built	empowered	integrated
certified	enabled	lectured
chaired	enacted	listened
charted	enlarged	originated
clarified	expanded	persuaded
coached	facilitated	presented
collaborated	fomented	responded
communicated	formulated	revolutionized
conducted	generated	set goals
coordinated	grouped	stimulated
delegated	guided	summarized
delivered	harmonized	trained
demonstrated	implemented	translated

Wow words for research and analysis

administered	detected	interviewed
amplified	determined	invented
analyzed	discovered	investigated
applied	documented	located
articulated	drafted	measured
assessed	edited	obtained
audited	evaluated	organized
augmented	examined	pinpointed
balanced	exhibited	planned
calculated	experimented	prepared
charted	explored	processed
collected	extracted	proofread
compared	focused	researched
compiled	forecast	reviewed
composed	found	riveted
concentrated	generated	screened
conducted	grouped	summarized
constructed	identified	surveyed
consulted	integrated	systematized
critiqued	interpreted	unearthed

Wow words for helping and caregiving

advanced	encouraged	reassured
advised	expedited	reclaimed
aided	facilitated	rectified
arbitrated	familiarized	redeemed
assisted	fostered	reeducated
attended	furthered	referred
augmented	guided	reformed
backed	helped	rehabilitated
balanced	instilled	repaired
boosted	liaised	represented
braced	mentored	served
clarified	ministered	settled
collaborated	negotiated	supplied
comforted	nourished	supported
consoled	nursed	stabilized
consulted	nurtured	streamlined
contributed	obliged	translated
counseled	optimized	treated
demonstrated	promoted	tutored
diagnosed	provided	unified

Wow words for financial management

adjusted	economized	reported
administered	eliminated	researched
allocated	exceeded	reshaped
analyzed	financed	retailed
appraised	forecast	returned
audited	funded	saved
balanced	gained	shopped
bought	generated	secured
budgeted	increased	sold
calculated	invested	solicited
computed	maintained	sourced
conciliated	managed	specified
cut	marketed	supplemented
decreased	merchandised	systematized
developed	planned	tested
disbursed	projected	tripled
dispensed	purchased	underwrote
distributed	quadrupled	upgraded
doubled	reconciled	upsized
downsized	reduced	vended

Wow words for many skills

accomplished	evaluated	overhauled
achieved	executed	performed
adapted	facilitated	prioritized
adhered	forecast	promoted
allocated	founded	proposed
appraised	governed	reconciled
arbitrated	guided	rectified
arranged	illustrated	remodeled
articulated	improved	repaired
assured	increased	reshaped
augmented	initiated	retrieved
collected	integrated	solved
communicated	interpreted	stimulated
composed	invented	streamlined
conceptualized	launched	strengthened
conserved	led	trained
contributed	navigated	upgraded
coordinated	optimized	validated
demonstrated	organized	won
dispensed	originated	wrote

The last word on Wow words: Little words never devalue a big idea.

Keywords Are Recruiters’ Key to Finding You

In the long-ago 1990s, recruiters and employers used keywords to search computer databases for qualified candidates. Today they type keywords into search engines to scour the entire Internet for the best people to select for a candidate pool.

That’s why, when you’re looking for a job, you can’t afford to ignore the search engines which seem to grow and grow. Take pains to feed those woolly-mammoth software creatures with effective keywords that shoot your resume to the top of recruiting search results. (In techie talk, the concept is called search engine optimization, or SEO.)

So, what are keywords as used in the job market? “Keywords are what employers search for when trying to fill a position: the essential hard skills and knowledge needed to do the job,” explains this book’s technical reviewer, James M. Lemke.

Keywords are chiefly nouns and short phrases. That’s your take-home message. But once in a while, just to confuse everyone, keywords can be adjectives and action verbs.

Is there one comprehensive dictionary of keywords? No, Lemke explains. “Employers choose their own list of keywords — that’s why no list is universal.”

In computerized job searches, keywords describe not only your knowledge base and skills but also such things as well-known companies, big-name colleges and universities, degrees, licensure, and professional affiliations.

Keywords identify your experience and education in these categories:

Skills

Technical and professional areas of expertise

Accomplishments and achievements

Professional licenses and certifications

Other distinguishing features of your work history

Prestigious schools or former employers

Employers identify keywords, often including industry jargon, that they think represent essential qualifications necessary for high performance in a given position. They specify those keywords when they search for resumes.

Keywords are arbitrary and specific to the employer and each employer search. So the keywords (qualifications) — starting with the job title — in each job ad are the place to start as you customize your resume for the position. Make educated guesses when you’re responding not to advertised jobs but are merely warehousing your resume online in a Web site database. The following lists provide a few examples of keywords for selected career fields and industries.

Action verbs are a prelude for keywords in stating your accomplishments. You managed what? You organized what? You developed what? Applicant software looks for the whats, and the whats are usually nouns.

Keywords for administration and management

administrative processes	facilities management
bachelor’s degree	front office operations
back office operations	office manager
benchmarking	operations manager
budget administration	policy and procedure
change management	production schedule
crisis communications	project planning
data analysis	records management
document management	regulatory reporting

Keywords for banking

branch manager	loan management
branch operations	loan recovery
commercial banking	portfolio management
construction loans	retail lending
credit guidelines	ROE (Return On Equity)
debt financing	ROI (Return On Investment)
FILO (First In, Last Out)	trust services
financial management	turnaround management
investment management	Uniform Commercial Code Filing
investor relations	workout

Keywords for customer service

account representative	Help desk
call center	key account manager
customer communications	order fulfillment
customer focus groups	order processing
customer loyalty	product response clerk
customer needs assessment	records management
customer retention	sales administration
customer retention innovations	sales support administrator
customer service manager	service quality
customer surveys	telemarketing operations
field service operation	telemarketing representative

Keywords for information technology

automated voice response (AVR)	global systems support
chief information officer	Help desk
client/server architecture	multimedia technology
cross-functional team	network development analyst
data center manager	project lifecycle
director of end-user computing	systems configuration
disaster recovery	technology rightsizing
end-user support	vendor partnerships

Keywords for manufacturing

asset management	logistics manager
assistant operations manager	manufacturing engineer
automated manufacturing	materials coordinator
capacity planning	on-time delivery
cell manufacturing	outsourcing
cost reductions	shipping and receiving operation
distribution management	spares and repairs management
environmental health and safety	union negotiations
inventory control	warehousing operations
just-in-time (JIT)	workflow optimization

Keywords for human resources

Bachelor of Science, Business Administration (BSBA)	organizational development (OD)
college recruitment	recruiter
compensation surveys	regulatory affairs
cross-cultural communications	sourcing
diversity training	staffing
grievance proceedings	succession planning
job task analysis	team leadership
labor contract negotiations	training specialist
leadership development	wage and salary administration

Keywords are the magnets that draw junior screeners and nonhuman eyes to your talents.

Where to Find Keywords

How can you find keywords for your occupation or career field? Use a highlighter to pluck keywords from these resources.

Online and printed help-wanted posts and ads: Highlight the job skills, competencies, experience, education, and other nouns that employers request.

Job descriptions: Ask employers for them, check at libraries for books or software with job descriptions, or search online. To find them online, just enter such terms as “job descriptions” or “job descriptions trainer” or “job descriptions electrical engineer” on a search engine.

The Occupational Outlook Handbook, published by the U.S. Department of Labor: Read free online at bls.gov/oco.

Your core resume: (See Chapter 6) Look through to highlight nouns that identify job skills, competencies, experience, and education.

Trade Web site news stories: News about your career field or occupation should be ripe with keywords. Don’t overlook Wikipedia, as well as blogs written by industry and company insiders.

Annual reports of companies in your field: The company descriptions of key personnel and departmental achievements should offer strong keyword clues.

Programs for industry conferences and events: Speaker topics address current industry issues, a rich source of keywords.

Internet search engine: Plug in a targeted company’s name and search the site that comes up. Look closely at the careers portal and read current press releases.

You can also use Internet search engines to scout industry-specific directories, glossaries, and dictionaries.

How to Use Keywords

Who reads the first pass of your resume? In many HR departments, resumes are screened by junior workers who lack the experience to read between the lines but work on a verbatim basis. That’s why nearly matching word for word — rather than liberally paraphrasing — at least a portion of a job’s requirements — is the way to go.

If the job requirements state:

Ability to lead the development of staffing strategies and implementation plans and programs that identify talent internally and externally through the effective use of external sources.

You write:

Developed and implemented staffing strategies that identified talent internally and externally though the effective use of external sources.

By incorporating some of the employer’s language, you strongly increase your odds of surviving the first cut. Your resume lives to fight for you another round when senior screeners look you over.

Get a Grip on Grammar

Resume language differs from normal speech in several ways. In general, keep the language tight and the tone professional, avoiding the following:

First-person pronouns (I, we): Your name is at the top of each resume page, so the recruiter knows it’s about you. Eliminate first-person pronouns. Also, don’t use third-person pronouns (he, she) when referring to yourself — the narrative technique makes you seem pompous. Simply start with a verb.

Articles (the, a, an): Articles crowd sentences and don’t clarify meaning. Substitute retrained staff for retrained the staff.

Helping verbs (have, had, may, might): For professionals and managers, helping verbs weaken claims and credibility — implying that your time has passed and portraying you as a job-hunting weakling. Say managed instead of have managed.

“Being” verbs (am, is, are, was, were): Being verbs suggest a state of existence rather than a state of motion. Try monitored requisitions instead of requisitions were monitored. The active voice gives a stronger, more confident delivery.

Shifts in tense: Use the present tense for a job you’re still in and the past tense for jobs you’ve left. But, among the jobs you’ve left, don’t switch back and forth between tenses. Another big mistake: dating a job as though you’re still employed (2008–Present) and then describing it in the past tense.

Complex sentences: Unless you keep your sentences lean and clean, readers won’t take time to decipher them. Process this mind-stumper:

Reduced hospital costs by 67% by creating a patient-independence program, where they make their own beds, and as noted by hospital finance department, costs of nails and wood totaled $300 less per patient than work hours of maintenance staff.

Eliminate complex sentences by dividing ideas into sentences of their own and getting rid of extraneous details:

Reduced hospital costs by 67%. Originated patient independence program that decreased per-patient expense by $300 each.

Overwriting: Use your own voice; don’t say expeditious when you want to say swift.

Abbreviations: Abbreviations are informal and not universal — even when they’re career-specific. Use Internet instead of Net.

The exception is industry jargon — use it, especially in digital resumes. Knowledge and use of industry jargon adds to your credibility to be able to correctly and casually use terms common to the industry in which you’re seeking employment.

A Few Words about Spelling

What is the name of a resume self-defense manual for job seekers? The dictionary!

Of all the reasons causing recruiters and hiring managers to shoot down resumes, carelessness with spelling, grammar, and choice of words ranks close to the top. Even when the real reason for rejection is bias or something else entirely, as in “I just don’t like that dude,” the use of misspelled words is a convenient justification. Who can quarrel with the adage “Garbage in, garbage out”?

Employers especially recoil from impaired spelling when the job seeker botches the interviewer’s or the organization’s name. (You can Google your way to the company’s Web site to spell the organization’s name; you can call to confirm the spelling of the interviewer’s name.) Here’s the take-away message:

Know thy computer spell checker. Know thy online dictionary. And know a human being who can carefully proofread your resumes to pick up grammar mistakes or misused words.

Words Sell Your Story

Remember, when your words speak for you, you need to be sure to use words that everyone can understand and that relate to the job at hand. Value your words. Each one is a tool to your future.