Resume keywords are the specific words and phrases a job description uses for
role, skills and outcomes — they help ATS and recruiters see you as a match.
Buzzwords are vague claims like “results-driven” or “dynamic leader” that sound impressive
but say nothing about what you actually did.
On this page, you’ll see how to swap empty buzzwords for clear, ATS-friendly keywords and measurable bullets —
plus examples you can adapt in 10–15 minutes.
Sunday night, Ravi replaced half his resume with power words — “dynamic,” “results-driven,” “synergy.”
Monday morning, his ATS score said 88/100. Wednesday, the inbox stayed quiet.
By Friday, he rewrote one bullet:
“Cut onboarding time by 34% by standardising runbooks and automating Slack hand-offs.”
The score dropped to 76. The callbacks started.
This is the core lesson of resume keywords vs buzzwords:
ATS might like density; humans hire on believable proof.
Keywords vs Buzzwords: Simple Definitions
Resume keywords:
Come directly from the job description (JD) or the role’s language in your industry.
Describe responsibilities, tools, domains and outcomes.
Help ATS and recruiters answer: “Does this person actually do this kind of work?”
Resume buzzwords:
Are generic adjectives like “proactive”, “results-driven”, “team player”, “rockstar”.
Don’t explain what changed because of you.
Sound safe, but are hard to defend in an interview or panel.
The goal is not to delete every adjective. It’s to make sure the heavy lifting in your resume is done by
role-aligned keywords + proof, not by empty labels.
Examples: Turning Buzzwords into Keywords + Proof
Buzzwordy: “Results-driven leader with strong communication skills.” Better: “Led 6 PMs; launched self-serve onboarding → cut activation time 34% (2.1k users).”
Buzzwordy: “Innovative problem-solver who drives impact.” Better: “Redesigned incident playbook; reduced average resolution time from 62 → 38 minutes.”
Notice: each improved line uses keywords from real JDs (led, launched, redesigned, incident, onboarding)
and one clear outcome.
Where to Put Resume Keywords So ATS Can See Them
Most ATS and recruiters scan your resume in this order:
Role title and headline.
Most recent 1–2 roles and their bullets.
Skills / tools section.
Start by placing your strongest, most accurate keywords in these three zones:
Before: “Owned onboarding and worked with stakeholders to drive outcomes.” After: “Owned self-serve onboarding; partnered CS+Eng; cut TTV from 9 → 6 days (Q2).”
Rule of thumb: If you can’t attach a number, scope or before/after to a word,
it’s probably a buzzword.
Keywords, ATS, and Country-Specific Checks
Keywords behave slightly differently across geographies. The core idea is the same, but phrasing and
expectations shift:
India: Naukri-style searches, Indian role titles, 1–2 page resumes are common.
Australia: Similar ATS logic to the UK, with different wording and industry mixes.
USA / Canada: Strong bias towards impact, clean single-column PDFs and short summaries.
Day 1: Pick one lane (e.g., Product Ops, Data Engineer). Close other tabs.
Day 2: Highlight keywords in 3–5 JDs for that lane.
Day 3: Rewrite 4–6 bullets with JD phrasing + proof.
Day 4: Convert to single-column; remove icons/tables.
Day 5: Run the ATS resume scan and fix the top clarity + parsing gaps.
Day 6–7: Apply to 5–7 aligned roles; track responses as data, not judgement.
Resume Keywords vs Buzzwords – FAQs
Resume keywords are the specific words and phrases a job description uses to describe
role, skills, tools and outcomes. Examples: “roadmap ownership”, “React”, “SQL pipelines”,
“incident response”, “reducing churn”.
ATS systems scan your resume for these keywords to decide whether you’re relevant enough to show to a
recruiter. If your resume never mentions key phrases from the JD, you may be filtered out before any human
reads your story — even if you have the right experience.
A practical approach: borrow the right JD phrases only where they’re true, then run an
ATS resume scan to ensure the resume stays parseable, clear, and evidence-backed.
Buzzwords are vague, overused terms that don’t tell a recruiter what you actually did. Examples include:
“Results-driven professional”
“Dynamic, out-of-the-box thinker”
“Team player with great communication skills”
“Go-getter” or “rockstar”
“Passionate about innovation”
None of these phrases are bad by themselves, but if they’re not backed by a specific action and outcome,
they become noise. Replace them with verbs and facts:
“Reduced churn by 3.8 pts YoY by redesigning renewal emails and outreach cadences.”
“Ran weekly stakeholder reviews; unblocked 4 delayed launches across Q3.”
Here’s a simple process:
Copy the full job description into a document.
Highlight phrases that repeat across “Responsibilities”, “Requirements” and “Nice to Have”.
Circle specific tools, domains and frameworks (e.g., “Kubernetes”, “B2B SaaS”, “FMCG”, “OKRs”).
Note the exact role naming and seniority (“Senior Product Manager”, “Lead SDE”, “Associate PM”).
Then update your bullets so the most important JD phrases show up naturally in places where you’ve genuinely
done that kind of work. After that, run an ATS resume scan to catch:
Vague lines that read like buzzwords.
Parsing issues that hide your skills.
Sections that look good to you but break in ATS.
Aim for a resume that sounds credible to a recruiter — not just “keyword dense.”
There’s no magic number like “7 times or ATS will ignore you”. In practice, repeating an important keyword
2–4 times across:
Your headline or summary
Your most recent experience bullets
Your skills section
…is usually enough. The key is context: every mention should be tied to a real responsibility or result,
not just a list of buzzwords.
If you’re chasing a 100% keyword match but your bullets don’t show proof, your ATS score might climb while
your interview rate drops. Focus on clear, believable examples first, then use tools like:
ATS resume scanner and
ATS Resume Checker India to sanity-check clarity and parsing.