February 29th, 2024
When a prospective employer sits down to review your resume, what do you want it to say? Do you want it to simply show them what you’ve accomplished or show what you can accomplish for them? Yes, employers are looking for your experience, but more than that, they’re looking at what experience that you have that is suitable for the job at hand.
But, what if the other hundred applicants have the same experience? How can you make your experience stand out from the rest?
The answer is simple: power words.
Power words elevate your experience from ‘worked with 10 people to finish a task’ to ‘collaborated with 10 like-minded individuals to launch a profitable campaign’. Using synonyms for typical resume words can help elevate your application from average to exceptional.
Here are some examples of typical resume words and their elevated counterparts:
Say ‘I excelled in the classroom setting earning a 3.89 GPA’ instead of ‘My classroom GPA was 3.89’
Say ‘I collaborated with 20+ members of my pole circle’ instead of ‘I worked with 20+ member team’
Say ‘I successfully orchestrated and performed a safety plan for our night training scenario’ instead of ‘I worked safely with my team during our storm training scenario’
Say ‘I achieved my Class A CDL through dedicated training and practice’ instead of ‘I got my Class A CDL’
Say ‘I utilized the opportunity to achieve my crane certification and earned my NCCER Crane Certification’ instead of ‘I earned my crane certification during my training’
Say ‘I was responsible as a groundman for a 20+ man team during field training operations’ instead of ‘I was a groundman for a 20+ man team’
Say ‘I used problem solving techniques to assess and manage damage caused during our storm training scenario’ instead of ‘I fixed damage during our storm training scenario’
Say ‘During my training, I improved my hurtman rescue time to 1 minute 45 seconds’ instead of ‘I did my hurtman training in 1 minute 45 seconds’
Say ‘I volunteered with Elevated Life to serve the local community’ instead of ‘I served at the local food bank’
Say ‘As a detail oriented student, I spent countless after school hours with my instructor for additional 1-on-1 training’ instead of ‘I worked after hours with the instructor to get better’
Once you’ve impressed your future employer by using our recommended power words and landing that interview, be sure to continue using this same verbiage when you chat with them in person. Look your resume over and study it so that if they ask you to elaborate on how you used problem solving techniques at storm training, you can give them a solid answer.
If you need more interview tips, be sure to check out the Resources section of our Lineman Country blog. Good luck and happy job searching!
