Trying to impress that potential employer with your creative prowess? You might want to double-check your resume and gauge its rating on the snooze-o-meter. Action verbs and
colorful phrases will definitely make your pitch stand out in a pile of duds, says Laurie Mitchell, an executive recruiter in Cleveland. "The best bullet point I've ever seen in a
resume read as follows: 'Herded a group of senior male executives into consensus.' The phrase conveyed exactly what she'd pulled off."
While male-bashing is certainly not a prerequisite for candidacy in most PR jobs, clever verbiage does help. Mitchell recommends using words such as:
- Accentuated
- Augmented
- Blueprinted
- Brainstormed
- Branded
- Championed
- Crafted
- Engineered
- Launched
- Pioneered
- Placed
- Publicized
- Scribed
- Wordsmithed
In short, reporters may prefer "just the facts," but recruiters like the flowery stuff. Just be sure to avoid "murder verbs" such as "controlled, dictated, slayed and killed,"
Mitchell says. Those are creepy.
(Mitchell, 216/292-6001)