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Career Management

Most despised corporate buzzwords

December 5, 2011, 2:33 PM PST

Takeaway: Do you have a particular buzzword that you hate? Here’s a whole list of them!

CareerBuilder asked 5,000 workers to choose the buzzwords they hated the most. I thought the list was interesting because I cannot believe anyone with half a brain and/or an ounce of self-respect would continue to use these terms. Anyway, here are the top terms employees despise:

Outside the box (31%)
Low-hanging fruit (24%)
Synergy (23%) (This one I can’t believe. People still say this?)
Loop me in (22%)
Best of breed (19%)
Incentivize (19%)
Mission-critical (19 %)
Bring to the table (18%)
Value-add (17%)
Elevator pitch (16%)
Actionable items (15%)
Proactive (15%)
Circle back (13%)
Bandwidth (13%)
High level (10%)
Learnings (9%)
Next steps (6%)

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About Toni Bowers

Toni Bowers is an award-winning writer and Managing Editor for TechRepublic.

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41 Votes

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Is it safe to put all those buzzwords in one place like that?

seanferd 5th Dec 2011

Even with proper containment, they might end up blowing the internet out of Earth orbit.

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22 Votes

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Opportunity

CharlieSpencer_Palmetto Updated - 5th Dec 2011

as an alternative for 'problem', as in, "We have an opportunity."

Opportunities can be ignored or bypassed. Problems must be fixed.

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19 Votes

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Contributr

Proximity doesn't matter

Sterling "chip" Camden 6th Dec 2011

Buzzwords can experience quantum entanglement at great distances. So we're all doomed.

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0 Votes

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This one was funny the first few times

jacob3273@... 5th Nov

I had one boss who would call a meeting by shouting that it was time to "circle the wagons." It got old after a while.

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1 Vote

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"Moving Forward"

jackbrill 4th Nov

I am 48 years old. I remember some 26 years ago, almost puking at my first real big-corporate meeting (3M) when I first heard the disgusting phrases, "think outside the box", "paradigm shift" and "let's noodle this one through". From TechRepublic's list, however, I cannot believe we've missed this one: "Moving forward". Everyone is always moving forward, particularly the idiots at Northland Aluminum/Nordicware ("Home of The Bundt Pan"), who so often forget the past and continue their failures in present time. "Moving forward" is a disgusting buzzphrase as well because of its use by pseudo-thinkers. We all know the type: they're the ass-kissers at meetings who enthusiastically nod their heads in agreement to whatever person above them on the food chain is drooling at the time. They love to "move forward", and present themselves as true critical thinkers, but it's impossible to rise above the levels of their own incompetence. The best adaptation of this phrase, however, came from the Prince of All Idiots, a one KC @ Nordicware, who degraded the 'move forward' milieu to the ultimate when everything became......wait for it......"On a moving-forward-basis". Egad. And remember, these people procreate AND take our air.

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0 Votes

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Corporate buzzwords are for cornballs

joshmont_3 7th Jun

Spine-less employees recite buzzwords to please the bosses that created this mess. I hate it so much that I created a blog titled www.talkliketheboss.com to help the poor souls that have to figure out what this all means.

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