Have you ever been exposed to Consultant B…S… Bingo?
In my previous life as a generalist HR consultant, I delivered the occasional training course. Here, I faced attendees with varying degrees of enthusiasm and, occasionally, cynicism about the content on offer.
A couple of times, the groups informed me that they usually played ‘Consultant B…S…Bingo’ when attending a training session – that is, they kept score all day as to how often the consultant used clichés or jargon as part of their content.
I was always relieved that they gave me a score of zero.
Of course, like all of us, I do occasionally fall into the trap of clichés (‘It’s not rocket science’ comes to mind, for example). However, when I want to convince someone, I call on the full resources of the English language to aid my cause.
Culling and Cleansing
Arguably, a Job Interview is one of the few times in life where a relatively small slice of time will have a massive impact on your life. A mere 45 minutes means the difference between a new job or not, with all of the obvious impacts on your future.
Here are 4 clichés & boring phrases that are likely to alienate a prospective employer. It’s worth a quick check to see if you use them.
1. Passionate
‘I’m passionate about…’
World peace, maybe? Eliminating poverty? Or even the Adelaide Crows football team?
It may be OK in a romantic movie but ‘passionate’ gets used too many times in both Cover Letters and job interviews. It is such a strong word that it doesn’t ring true in a work setting. Not many of us turn up to work every day passionate about our daily tasks.
It’s not so much that your listener is going to actively disbelieve what you then say: most people understand that you don’t really mean ‘passionate’ in the true sense of the word. It’s just harder to believe something that is attached to something unbelievable.
If you are absolutely wedded to this phrase, follow it up with specifics. Your delivery style will need to be lively and enthusiastic, and the content will need to be strong to convince your listener.
A more natural alternative is…
‘What I love about xxx is yyyy.’
