Never put "excellent communication skills" in your resume. Who doesn't think they have "excellent communication skills?" It means nothing. It's fluff that detracts from the real content of your resume. Instead, give the reader examples of how you use those skills.

Imagine four different people who have put "excellent communication skills" on their resumes, and their thought processes:

  • "I give weekly status presentations to upper management about project status. I can put 'excellent communication skills' on my resume!"
  • "I taught a lunch & learn session on JavaScript. I can put 'excellent communication skills' on my resume!"
  • "I've written articles for the company newsletter. I can put 'excellent communication skills' on my resume!"
  • "I am proud of my ability to spell and use basic English mechanics. I can put 'excellent communication skills' on my resume!"

So when someone reading your resume sees "excellent communication skills" on your resume, which one will she think it means? Chances are, she's going to assume you're the "I can spel gud" guy and gloss over it.

(Have you noticed that while you read this article, you tire of reading the words "excellent communication skills"? So does the poor hiring manager who has to read it on every resume he gets.)

Instead of putting those dreaded three words on your resume, replace it with a description about how exactly you use these skills. Doing that is an iterative process that digs down to find the interesting stuff that the hiring manager wants to read.

The other day I was helping my friend Katie with her resume, and I spotted the dreaded "excellent communication skills" near the top. We had an exercise to come up with something better that went a little like this:

Andy: "Why do you say you have excellent communication skills?"

Katie: "I don't know, I'm just good communicating. People talk to me."

Andy: "How do you mean they talk to you? About what?"

Katie: "There was this one time where I was on a project with these outside consultants, and consultants were upset because they weren't getting what they need, and management didn't know what was going on. It was just a mess. And people were really frustrated and they'd tell me all the things that were going wrong."

Andy: "Good! And so what did you do?"

Katie: "I talked to the project leader, and explained what was going wrong that he hadn't heard about, and we worked on ways to make sure everybody could keep track of the deliverables, and get them to the consultants. And then the project leader asked me to do status reports for upper management. It all worked really well."

Andy: "So would you feel comfortable saying 'Reworked project process to increase communication, both vertically and horizontally, across the company and with outside consultants?' And can you specify how many people were on the project, too?"

Katie: "Yeah, that sounds good. And plus, there was this other time…."

Notice how with just a little digging and iteration (shortened for this article) Katie and I turned her vague "excellent communication skills" into something that tells the reader exactly how she has used those skills to benefit the business. What we wound up with is far more impressive than being able to write clearly.

As I've said before, don't put self-assessments in your resume. Give the evidence and let the reader make her own decision.

What are your dreaded cliches on resumes that mean nothing? Let me know in the comments below.