The Top 10 CV clichés

The overuse of clichés amongst job applicants is failing to help them stand out from the crowd.

New survey findings from Stopgap, a leading recruitment consultant in the marketing sector, reveal that the overuse of stock phrases amongst job applicants is in danger of rendering the modern CV meaningless.

The survey results show that job applicants in Britain are simply parroting back the criteria that the employers themselves have already defined in job advertisements. There is a high correlation between the assets sought and listed by employers in their job advertisements and the assets claimed by applicants in their CVs. This leads to employers being deluged by CVs from applicants relying on established clichés to market themselves and hence, ironically, failing to help them stand out from the crowd.

Top 10 CV Cliches
1. Communications Skills
2. Team Player
3. Project Management Skills
4. Results orientated
5. People Management Skills
6. Creative
7. Meet deadline
8. Motivated
9. Thrive on challenges
10. Organisational skills

Top 10 job ad stock phrases

1. Communication Skills
2. People Management Skills
3. Creative
4. Strategic
5. Project Management Skills
6. Team Player
7. Commercial Knowledge
8. Leadership Skills
9. Negotiation Skills
10. Analytical

Claire Owen, the Managing Director of Stopgap, comments "Given that communication skills are rated as the most important skill in the marketing industry by employers and applicants alike, the fact that neither of these groups are making the most of their opportunity to communicate with the other is frustrating.

"Applicants are missing the opportunity to sell their real strengths by falling back on platitudes. Employers encourage this trend - making their own recruitment process significantly harder, as well as wasting time and advertising spend - by putting out tired clichés, rather than more challenging job specs tailored to the true demands of the role. Employers should also outline the cultural identity of their company, thus attracting those candidates not only with the correct skills set for the job, but with the correct character fit for the company."

Platitudes aside, the survey identifies another potential pitfall for applicants, as more and more CVs are full of superfluous information. Over two-thirds of CVs contain information on what individuals get up to in their spare time. More often than not, these activities fail to differentiate applicants as the same interests, namely sports and travel, appear time after time.

In addition, 40% of CVs include information on basic IT skills such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and 15% of individuals feel that their grasp of email and the internet is a personal selling point.

Owen continues: "Information on IT skills and leisure pursuits are of secondary interest to a potential employer, and should only be included if they illustrate attributes which will add value in a relation to the job role. For example, leading a mountaineering trip would indicate motivation, leadership and strategic-thinking. However, citing "sports and travel" as personal interests gives little extra insight into the candidate in question, and will not differentiate them substantially from thousands of others!

"So what should candidates seek to demonstrate through their CVs? We'd encourage applicants to bin the jargon and get personal! They need to take time to consider the demands of the role for which they are applying and then focus their CV on evidencing relevant assets to that position. By using examples of past experience - work-based or otherwise - to testify to their aptitude for the job, applicants will put themselves in a much stronger position to stand out from their peers."

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