The 10 most common words Americans use on their resume – and which ones they are spelling wrong 

A new study published by Jiurnoresearch.org has revealed the most overused words on resumes, with ‘responsible’ coming top, which features on more than 5.1 million American resumes. 

 QR code generator QRFY, compiled a list of 50 commonly used resume words and phrases, and then ran each of these through Indeed’s Resume Search, to find which featured the most across resumes updated in the past 6 months.  

‘Responsible’ was found to be the most frequently used word, featuring in 5,146,386 resumes over the last six months. It has a significantly high usage rate, appearing 349% more frequently than any other words on the list, while also being the most-used word on resumes in each individual state. 

The second most-common word was found to be ‘organized’ which featured in 3,864,497 resumes. A crucial skill employers seek in today’s dynamic job market, which reflects the need for individuals who can manage workload, deadlines, and resources effectively. 

Closely following in third is ‘social’ which featured in 3,491,557 resumes, highlighting the importance of building and leveraging professional networks. 

‘Trained’ placed fourth being used 2,952,148 times, while ‘Leader’ ranks fifth featuring on 2,330,139 resumes.  

The 10 most-overused words and phrases on resumes: 

The 10 most commonly misspelt words and phrases on resumes 

 As well as looking at which words are the most overused, the analysis also looked at the most misspelt words on resumes.  

‘Professional’ was the most commonly misspelt word, which was found to be spelt as ‘profesional’ on 38,697 resumes within the past 6 months, with a number of jobseekers forgetting the crucial double ‘s’.  

The second most misspelt word was ‘organized’, which saw 20,260 resumes adopt the UK spelling of the word, ‘organised’ which uses an ‘s’ rather than a ‘z’. 

Following in third, was ‘enviroment’ rather than ‘environment’ which cropped up in 14,770 resumes, and missed the ‘n’ from the word. In fourth was the misspelling of ‘management’ as ‘mangement’ which misses out the letter ‘a’ and featured in 9,354 resumes. 

The fifth most misspelt was the word ‘receive’, where people often transposed their vowels instead spelling it as ‘recieve.’ 9,354 resumes failed to follow the rule of ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after ‘c’ with this word. 

The 20 most overused words: 

The 20 most commonly misspelt words