Resume guide
Cliché words are not wrong — they are just empty. For each one below you get ten stronger replacements, why the original fails and a rewritten bullet that keeps the same facts.
It states a feeling, not a fact. Nobody writes that they are indifferent about their field, so the word carries no information a recruiter can verify.
Before
Passionate about digital marketing and helping brands grow.
After
Six years in digital marketing, most recently growing paid search revenue 41% year over year.
It describes the job description you were handed rather than what you actually achieved in it.
Before
Responsible for managing the company's social media accounts.
After
Owned four social channels and grew the audience from 8K to 51K in 11 months.
It hides your share of the work. A hiring manager cannot tell whether you led the project or attended the meetings.
Before
Contributed to the launch of the new onboarding experience.
After
Built and shipped the new onboarding flow, raising day-7 activation from 22% to 38%.
Support verbs shrink real work. If you did part of something meaningful, name the part you did.
Before
Helped with the monthly close process.
After
Automated three reconciliation steps in the monthly close, cutting it from 9 days to 5.
It is a self-assessment. Evidence of output does the same job and cannot be disputed.
Before
Hard-working team player with a strong work ethic.
After
Handled a 60-ticket weekly queue at a 98% on-time resolution rate across two years.
The phrase is on almost every resume, which makes it invisible. Collaboration is proven by who you worked with and what came out of it.
Before
Excellent team player who works well with others.
After
Co-led a five-person cross-functional squad spanning design, data and support to ship the billing rebuild.
A claim about accuracy is only convincing with an accuracy number or a process you owned.
Before
Detail-oriented professional with strong organisational skills.
After
Audited 1,200 vendor invoices per quarter with a 0.2% error rate after introducing a two-step check.
If you have results, show them. The adjective takes up the space a metric could use.
Before
Results-driven sales professional with a proven track record.
After
Closed $2.4M in new ARR at 118% of quota across eight consecutive quarters.
It signals proximity to a project rather than a role in it. Swap in the verb that describes your actual task.
Before
Worked on the internal reporting tool.
After
Rebuilt the internal reporting tool in React, cutting dashboard load time from 9s to 1.4s.
Both are longer ways of saying "used", and neither adds meaning. Name the tool and the outcome instead.
Before
Utilised various data tools to leverage customer insights.
After
Queried 4M rows in SQL and built the churn model in Python that flagged 62% of cancellations a month early.
Originality is judged from the work, not the label. Describe the thing nobody had done before you did it.
Before
Innovative thinker who brings creative solutions to problems.
After
Piloted a self-serve refund flow that removed 3,100 support tickets a quarter.
Every applicant claims it. The proof is the audience you addressed and what changed afterwards.
Before
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
After
Briefed a 40-person leadership offsite quarterly and authored the docs 300 engineers onboard with.
Hirelu flags empty phrasing and suggests stronger wording using only the facts already in your file — no invented achievements.
Related: resume action verbs, resume summary examples, resume analyzer.