LinkedIn’s most overused buzzwords: are you a corporate cliché?
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While the French see themselves as dynamic, the Spanish think they’re managerial, the Irish pose as motivated and Singaporeans obsess over their track records, us Aussies just can’t get over how creative we are.
Taken from LinkedIn’s analysis of the most overused buzzwords in LinkedIn profiles for 2011, these descriptions represent trends in what professionals see as important attributes as they play the ‘bullshit bingo’ game of personal branding.
Creative was the top buzzword used by Australians in their LinkedIn profiles, a value that was shared with Canada, Germany, Netherlands, the UK, and the US as the most important to convey.
Compared to last year’s findings, ‘results-oriented’, ‘fast-paced’ and ‘entrepreneurial’ have fallen out of the top 10 and ‘motivated’ has eclipsed ‘innovative’ as a desirable trait. Maintaining their spots in the top ten were ‘creative’, ‘effective’, ‘communication skills’ and ‘strategic planning’ while last year’s top buzzword ‘extensive experience’ dropped to number three.
The analysis looked at the more than 135 million professional profiles on LinkedIn around the world, identifying the top buzzwords for a number of countries.
Creative: Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, UK, US
Multinational: Brazil
Dynamic: France
Effective: India
Problem solving: Italy
Motivated: Ireland
Managerial: Spain
Track record: Singapore
In the United States, the most used buzzwords were dominated by ‘creative’, ‘organisational’ and ‘effective’.
So if your LinkedIn profile reads ‘creative, dynamic, innovative team player who is a problem solver and effective strategic planner’, be warned that you may not be standing out from the crowd as much as you thought.