"Hard worker" is worthless: rewriting every line so a stranger could verify it
Okay you guys. We've marked the vague lines, we cut the objective statement, we tailored things to the actual job. Now we're going to fix the sentences themselves.
Here's the test I want stuck in your head from now on: could a stranger who's never met you verify this line? Not "does it sound good." Verify. Could they check it, ask about it, picture the actual thing you did?
"Hard worker" fails that test completely. So does "team player," "detail-oriented," "excellent communication skills," "results-driven." Every one of them could be pasted onto literally anyone's résumé and nobody could prove or disprove a word of it. That's why hiring people skip right over them. They've read "hard worker" nine thousand times and it has never once told them anything.
The rewrite rule
Every line on your résumé should be a thing you did, with something specific enough that a stranger could picture it or check it. That's the opinion I'll state flat out: if you can't put a number or a specific detail on a line, rework it or cut it. Not soften it. Not add another adjective. Cut it.
Numbers are the easiest fix, when you have them:
- "Hard worker" becomes "Covered shifts for three coworkers during a staffing shortage without missing a deadline."
- "Great with customers" becomes "Handled 40-plus customer calls a day, resolved most without escalating."
- "Team player" becomes "Trained four new hires on the register system."
You don't always have a clean number, and that's fine. Specific still works without one. "Responsible for inventory" is vague. "Reordered stock weekly based on sales trends, caught two vendor billing errors that quarter" is not vague, even with no percentage in it. The test isn't "does it have a number," it's "could someone check this against reality."
How to actually do this at home
Go line by line down your résumé. For each one, ask yourself the stranger question out loud if you have to. If the answer is "no, that's just a description of me," rewrite it as a thing you did. If you can't turn it into a thing you did, it probably doesn't belong on the page at all.
A trick that helps: finish the sentence "I did this, which resulted in ___." If you can't finish that sentence, the line is probably too vague to survive. If you can finish it, that ending is often the better line to keep.
Don't panic if you don't remember the exact number. Estimate honestly and use "approximately" if you need to, or just describe the scope plainly — "managed a team of five to eight seasonal staff" is fine even if you're not dead certain it was exactly six every time. Don't invent a number that sounds impressive and isn't true. That's a different problem and it'll catch up with you in the interview when someone asks you to explain it.
Sadie's résumé
I've told you guys Sadie's story before, at least the short version — but this is exactly where it happened. She was 20, applying for her first real job out of school, and her résumé said "hard worker" and "team player" and basically nothing else. I made her go through and rewrite every single line as something she'd actually, measurably done. She was annoyed about it for a solid day. Kept saying "but that's what I am, I am a hard worker." I kept saying, sure, now prove it in one line. She got there. Turned "hard worker" into a line about closing the store solo three nights a week and balancing the till without errors. That's the same fact, just verifiable instead of vague. She got the job.
Track what you send
While you're doing this rewrite, I want you to start something else: keep a simple log of every job you apply to. Doesn't need to be fancy. A spreadsheet, a notebook, whatever you'll actually use. Which résumé version you sent, what date, what happened.
I do this with everything, honestly — I photograph the confirmation screen when I apply for a job the same way I write the date on my canned tomatoes. It's not about being obsessive. It's that if you don't write it down, you're guessing later about what worked. Six weeks from now when you've got two interviews and forty rejections, you want to be able to look back and see which version of your résumé, with which rewritten lines, actually got the callback. That's how you know what's working instead of just hoping.
Before next time
Go through your whole résumé and flag every line that's an adjective about you instead of a thing you did. Bring your flagged copy next time — we're rewriting them together, out loud, in class.