Resume slop lives in two places: the verb that opens a bullet, and the adjective in your headline. Both are the spots where a model reaches for a stock word, and both are the spots a recruiter scans first.
The phrases, and what to write instead
| Avoid | Write instead |
|---|---|
| Spearheaded | Led. Then say how many people and what shipped. |
| Leveraged | Used. Name the tool and the result. |
| Utilized | Used. |
| Responsible for | Use the action verb and the outcome. "Ran payroll for 300 staff." |
| Results-driven | Give one result instead. |
| Dynamic professional | Say your actual job. |
| Detail-oriented | Name the thing you caught. |
| Team player | Name the collaboration and its outcome. |
| Proven track record | State the metric. |
| Passionate about technology | Name what you built on your own time. |
| Meticulous | Give the example. |
| Cutting-edge technologies | Name the stack. |
| Seamlessly integrated | Say what connected to what, and what broke before. |
| Highly motivated professional with a results-oriented mindset | Delete the whole line. It says nothing. |
| Seeking to utilize my skills in a dynamic environment | Name the role you want. |
Score this draft before you send it
Paste your text into Slop Score. It checks every rule on this page plus the full 200+ list, marks each hit in place, and cleans the mechanical ones. Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.
Check my draft →The rule underneath all of them
Every replacement above does the same thing: it swaps a claim for evidence. That is the whole method, and it is why no tool can finish the job for you. A model can delete results-driven. Only you know the number that belongs there.
Density is what readers notice, not any single word. One phrase from this table is a coincidence. Four in a short piece is a pattern, and people now recognise the pattern quickly. The full 200+ tell list covers the vocabulary, sentence patterns and machine artifacts that apply everywhere, whatever you are writing.
Questions
Do ATS systems reject AI-sounding resumes?
Applicant tracking systems screen for keywords and formatting, not for style, so "spearheaded" will not get you filtered out by software. The cost is human: a recruiter reading twenty resumes with the same six verbs cannot tell them apart. Specific numbers are what survive both readers.
Which resume verbs should I stop using?
Spearheaded, leveraged, utilized, orchestrated, championed, and any verb you would not say out loud. Replace them with led, used, built, ran, fixed. A plain verb followed by a number beats an impressive verb followed by nothing.
How do I fix a resume that sounds like everyone else's?
Take each bullet and ask what number belongs in it. If a bullet has no number, no name, and no date, it is describing a job category rather than your work. Those are the lines to rewrite first.