People, in the coming year we need to literally recontextualise our synergy.”

The business world of today is flooded with overused buzzwords, usually related to past management trends of the day.  You know the ones: they appear in motivational posters hung on office walls, or maybe you’ve even heard them during work meetings.

Be careful using buzzwords!  Everybody likes to use them from time to time, but you should beware over-using some words that might once have been popular, as buzzwords can become outdated or cliché.

According to LinkedIn in 2015, words such as ‘motivated’, ‘strategic’, ‘enthusiastic’ and ‘passionate’ came top of a poll for the least-liked words among recruiters.  Many of them say that such adjectives have been so overused that they’ve lost their meaning, and their appearance in a CV causes employers to lose interest in a candidate.

Here are the 10 most overused words on LinkedIn:

  1. Motivated
  2. Creative
  3. Enthusiastic
  4. Passionate
  5. Track record
  6. Driven
  7. Extensive experience
  8. Wide range
  9. Responsible
  10. Strategic

So: if you’re trying to get your point across, avoid worn-out clichés.  They might well be annoying to a potential employer!