As I have discussed in my recent post titled How Bankers Really Look At Your CV most hiring managers will only give your CV about 20 seconds when they are scrolling through the initial batch of CVs. Having said that, before your CV even arrives on the hiring manager’s desk it is first screened by a graduate recruiter in the human resource department.Graduate recruiters will generally look at your CV in a bit more detail. Therefore, make sure your CV is well formatted, clear and concise in communicating your strengths and, also, does not contain the following ‘cringe worthy’ words, which have the tendency to regularly show up on CVs and cover letters and are almost guaranteed to make the HR person roll their eyes.According to a recent survey you should never use the following words on your CV:- best of breed (Seriously, who would ever use that to describe themselves?)- go-getter (Ok, so you complete what you are asked to do. Awesome!)- think outside of the box (As opposed to you being only an ‘inside-the-box’ thinker? Great job!)- synergy (In my personal opinion the worst word anyone can ever use, as it has been massively over-used in the past.)- go-to person (Ok, so you answered a few questions that people asked you. Nice.)- thought leadership (You just graduated and you are a thought leader? Really?)- value add (Anyone who does not add value should not be employed anywhere, ever.)- results-driven (As opposed to not giving a sh*t about results?)- team player (Ok, so you can play with others? Great! Oh wait, that’s EVERYONE.)- bottom-line- hard worker- strategic thinker- dynamic- self-motivated- detail-oriented- proactively- track recordThe issue with describing yourself, in general, is that you would never say something negative about yourself in a job application. This in turn means that any words you use to describe yourself are effectively meaningless.Instead, what you want to do is to describe what you have achieved, learned and what skills you have developed while at university, in societies you have been a member of and/or during previous your work experience. Recruiters want to know what projects you have worked on and what you have accomplished, and how that relates to the job that you are applying for. The way to do that is to use verbs and not adjectives. Great examples of words recruiters want to see would be managed, completed, created, mentored, trained, achieved, improved, negotiated, increased, etc.When it comes to writing your CV always make sure you clearly and concisely communicate why you are an excellent candidate and why you are better than other candidates with a very similar educational background.