Loosen up your Language
Does your cover letter read something like this:
“Herewith please find attached my CV.”
And what about your LinkedIn profile? Does it read something like this:
“Dedicated marketing professional, with extensive experience and proven results in…”
With more and more professionals realising the benefit of an online profile, the results are often a cut-and-paste job of paper CV content to LinkedIn profile. And if you’re someone who believes that for a CV or a cover letter to be taken seriously it needs to be written in a stilted, formal style, then your LI profile will sound corporate and woolly.
Here are a few guidelines for writing in a more engaging style:
- forget the herewiths, hithertos and thuses
It’s a sales and marketing piece you’re writing, not a legal contract.
- write your CV in a verb-type style
(“doubled profits” rather than “I doubled profits” – or heaven forbid, “He / She doubled profits”.)
- write your LI profile summary in the first person
Imagine you’re chatting to someone about what you do – that’s the sort of style that will get your personality across.
- use what my old music teacher called “a bit of vim and vigour” in both CV and LI profile
Interesting vocabulary that gets to the heart of what you do, how you got results or made a difference. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little, or use a thesaurus to help you expand your vocabulary comfort zone.
- keep it real
Business jargon, cliche and buzzwords – they’re irritating to read (do you really want to sound like a corporate brochure?) and make you sound soulless and uninspiring. In your LI profile you can talk about what makes you tick, what sets you on fire (workwise) – let the real you emerge.
There are some interesting profiles in this Bnet post if you want a few examples.
Photo credit: recoverling