You may not land a UAE job if your LinkedIn profile says ‘responsible’

Social media giant LinkedIn has released a list of the most overused words on the professional networking site in the UAE, and the most abused (sorry, overused) word for 2013 was (imagine drum rolls here) ‘responsible’. It was also the most used world across the world, it seems.

So if your LinkedIn profile says you’re responsible, slim chance that employers will find it any different from the millions others who’re also claiming that they’re equally – if not more- responsible as you.

In fact, globally, the term ‘responsible’ was used more than twice as often as the No. 2 two buzzword, ‘strategic’, which is at No. 3 in the UAE. The second most popular adjective in the UAE was ‘effective’.

Surprisingly, most of the countries LinkedIn surveyed (14, including the UAE) had the same top three buzzwords: ‘responsible’, ‘strategic’, ‘effective’, though not in the same order.

The social media giant boasts of more than 259 million members worldwide, out of which 10-million-plus are from Middle East and North Africa region.

Among the 10 most overused buzzwords on UAE LinkedIn users’ profiles are:

#1 (UAE rank) Responsible: (Global rank #1)

#2 Effective (Global rank #4)

#3 Strategic (#2)

#4 Organizational (#7)

#5 Creative (#3)

#6 Dynamic (not ranked in Top 10 globally)

#7 Analytical (#10)

#8 Competitive (not ranked in Top 10 globally)

#9 Innovative (#9)

#10 Expert (#6)

Interestingly, the tag ‘patient’ ranks at #5 in LinkedIn profiles globally but fails to debut on the UAE list, suggesting that patience is not a virtue we in the UAE like to be associated with. Drive your car at 10km above the speed limit on Sheikh Zayed Road at any time of the day, and you’ll know why not many in the UAE use that word to describe themselves.

“Since we last did this study, LinkedIn’s member base grew from 187 million to more than 259 million members worldwide. Drawing from English-language LinkedIn profiles around the globe, here’s what we found: this year, ‘responsible’ landed solidly at number one,” LinkedIn says on its blog.

Buzzwords from last year that didn’t make the cut this year are: ‘experimental’, ‘motivated’, ‘multinational’, ‘specialised’