110+ CV Buzzwords for UK Job Seekers

CV buzzwords are powerful words to describe your soft skills and the work experience on your CV.

Using the right buzzwords in your CV is important because they make recruiting managers confident that you’re a pro and makes them more likely to offer you an interview.

There are a few types of CV buzzword:

• CV action verbs: A ‘doing’ word that shows what your previous achievements involved
• professional adjectives: a ‘describing’ word that shows the quality of your work
• industry language: abbreviations or words used only in your sector that’ll show you know what you’re talking about
• keywords: words and phrases from the job advert that’ll help you optimise your CV for AI recruitment software

Skills-based CV buzzwords

If you want to highlight a particular skill you’ve mastered, consider using one of these buzzwords on your CV.

Leadership

To emphasise your leadership skills, these are some good buzzwords to add to your CV:

Communication

To showcase your communication skills, here’s a strong collection of buzzwords that will convey them to employers:

Creativity

Creativity is vital in industries from marketing to graphic design. Make sure hiring managers see you’re a creative professional by using one of these related CV buzzwords:

Flexibility & adaptability

If you have a growth mindset, you’ll be a valuable hire because you can adapt to new circumstances and situations. Here are some CV buzzwords that’ll advertise that aspect of your personality:

Teamwork skills

Having strong teamwork skills makes it easy for you to work with the people around you to achieve your company’s goals.

Time management

Demonstrating good time management on your CV will show employers you’ll be able to achieve the tasks they set you. Here are a few good words to highlight this quality:

CV buzzwords to avoid

We’ve covered words that look great on your CV, but there are also buzzwords you shouldn’t use — clichéd terms that make your CV dull and unprofessional.

Here are some overused buzzwords you should leave off your CV, and some more interesting terms to use instead:

Highly motivated/hard-working

These two terms, ‘highly motivated’ and ‘hard-working’, are so common that they make employers’ eyes glaze over. So here are 10 more effective ways of saying the same thing:

Passionate

If everyone claims to be passionate on their CV, how are employers supposed to know that you really are? Here are a few words and phrases to use instead:

Detail-oriented

Attention to detail is a key requirement for almost every job, but ‘detail-oriented’ is overused on CVs. Here are a few alternative phrasings for it:

Go-getter

The term ‘go-getter’ might sound impressive, but it doesn’t tell employers how you’re proactive at work. Try one of these other descriptions to get the message across:

Dynamic

‘Dynamic’ is another buzzword that will set employers’ eyes rolling. Here are some more descriptive adjectives:

How to find CV buzzwords

The best place to find good buzzwords for your CV is the job posting you’re responding to. Review the job description and look for words that describe the following:

• Ideal personality traits and soft skills
• Key responsibilities

Here’s a job advert with highlighted buzzwords:

These are the most important buzzwords to put on a CV targeting this job advert:

A second way to find good buzzwords is by looking at CV examples from your industry. These samples will include the most common terms used by job title.

How to put buzzwords on your CV

Knowing which buzzwords to use on your CV is essential. But you also need to know how to put these words on your CV:

1. Put the most relevant buzzwords in your intro

The buzzwords most likely to get the recruiting manager’s attention belong at the top of your CV. So start your CV by placing buzzwords in your personal statement where they’re most likely to be seen.

Here’s a personal statement from an administrative assistant CV with buzzwords bolded:

Multifaceted Administrative Assistant with 4 years of experience supporting smooth and efficient office operations. Adept at multitasking, scheduling, and coordinating events. Excited to apply my knowledge and abilities to the Administrator position at Sherwood Co.

These well-placed buzzwords will prove to employers that the applicant has the necessary experience, skills, and drive for the role.

2. Give your buzzwords context with examples and numbers

The top of your CV isn’t the only place to add buzzwords.

Place them throughout your CV, using them together with achievements backed up by hard numbers to show your successes.

The best place to add these number-based achievements with buzzwords is in your CV’s experience section. Putting CV buzzwords in your experience section shows employers that you’ve previously accomplished goals similar to their own.

Here’s how one applicant used buzzwords with examples and numbers in their work experience section:

• Conducted exploratory data analysis on diverse datasets using Python and SQL, uncovering key insights that influenced strategic business decisions
• Developed predictive models using machine learning techniques, contributing to a 15% improvement in customer churn prediction accuracy

3. Don’t overuse CV buzzwords

As important as buzzwords are, you don’t want to overuse them otherwise employers won’t be able to find your actual accomplishments.

Instead, sprinkle keywords naturally through the information you include in your CV to describe your experience.

There’s no rule for how many buzzwords to use in every sentence or bullet point, but here are examples of natural and unnatural buzzword usage to give you an idea of what you’re going for:

Frequently asked questions

Here are answers to two of the most common questions about CV word choices:

1. How do you sound interesting on a CV?

You sound interesting on a CV by using descriptive language, specific examples, and data to show how you fit the role you’re applying for.

Also, you should write a cover letter for your CV that shows your personality to get the employer interested in hiring you.

2. What is a powerful sentence for a CV?

A powerful sentence for a CV:

• is short
• highlights your role-relevant experience, skills, or accomplishments
• contains data or a hard number

This powerful sentence should go in your CV summary, at the top of the first page. And you should add powerful sentences to your work experience bullets too.

Here’s an example of a powerful sentence for a CV:

Set a company record by bringing in £2.3 million in one month.