Professionals Touting “Creative, Organizational and Effective” Get Stung by LinkedIn’s Annual List of Overused Profile Buzzwords

Mountain View, Calif. — LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 187 million members, today released the most overused words and phrases in members’ LinkedIn Profiles for 2012.
The No. 1 most overused buzzword in LinkedIn Profiles globally and for professionals based in the United States is “creative.” Here’s the entire 2012 list of the top 10 terms that are most prevalent in the profiles of U.S.-based professionals:
    Creative
    Organizational
    Effective
    Motivated
    Extensive experience
    Track record
    Innovative
    Responsible
    Analytical
    Problem solving
“Every day potential business partners, clients and employers are searching for professionals on the Web,” said Nicole Williams, LinkedIn’s career expert. “If you want opportunity to come knocking, you’ve got to make your LinkedIn Profile stand out from the pack. Millions of professionals say they’re ‘creative,’ so set yourself apart by describing and linking to projects you’ve worked on that truly were different, unique and compelling. Pointing to concrete examples of the creative work you’ve done is more convincing than simply stating you are a ‘creative’ professional.”
This is the third year that LinkedIn has issued its buzzwords ranking. “Creative” was also the top overused buzzword for professionals in the U.S. in the 2011 rankings. In 2010, the first year the study was conducted, “extensive experience” was the No. 1 buzzword for professionals based in the U.S. When LinkedIn released its first buzzwords ranking, the site had over 85 million professionals. LinkedIn now has more than 187 million professionals and is growing at a rate of approximately two new members per second. Read more...