Whether responding to interview questions or writing your resume or bio, talking about yourself can be difficult. How do you choose the right words to communicate your personality, abilities and interests? The topic of cooperativeness provides a chance to learn and practice. How would you answer the following question?
What does “cooperativeness” mean and how does it apply to you?
Before answering, let’s review all the topics featured in the curriculum of the Act II Career Readiness and Management Program. As you may know, the course outline has been organized around 12 different words: openness, achievement, self-confidence, stress tolerance, communication, assertiveness, competitiveness, conscientiousness, cooperativeness, motivation, patience and perseverance.
“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.” – Benjamin Franklin
When asked to name 3 words to describe yourself, as prospective employers often do, would you name any of these words? Not likely, because all these words are nouns, not the adjective versions we’d normally use to describe someone: open, accomplished, confident, resilient, communicative, assertive, competitive, conscientious, cooperative, motivated, patient and persistent.
You may recall from previous English classes that adding the suffix “-ness” to the end of an adjective like “cooperative” makes the word a noun, the quality of being that adjective. However, nouns may not be that useful when talking about yourself or something you did. Try using “cooperativeness” in a sentence:
My cooperativeness is what helped on this project.
My cooperativeness helped on this project.
This project was helped by my cooperativeness.
I demonstrated my cooperativeness when I helped on this project.
Why do these sentences sound so lame? Because the further you distance yourself from the action (verb) “to cooperate,” the weaker and more passive you seem. What did you actually do for this project?
My best advice: Take responsibility for your actions and describe yourself with the active voice and active verbs instead of the passive voice, passive verbs, weak adjectives or awkward nouns.
As a reminder, the active voice places the subject in the role of doing an action (subject-verb-object), whereas the passive voice places the subject in the role of being acted upon (object-verb-subject). In the passive voice, the subject may be unclear, as in this simple example. Did you or someone else finish your homework?
I finished my homework. (active voice)
My homework was finished. (passive voice)
“Root out all the ‘to be’ verbs in your prose and bludgeon them until dead. No ‘It was’ or ‘they are’ or ‘I am.’ Don’t let it be, make it happen.” – Barbara Kingsolver
So back to the original question: what does “cooperativeness” mean and how does it apply to you? Answer in a way that centers you as the subject and explains how you make things happen while collaborating with others. Be truthful and thoughtful. Give specifics, but don’t give yourself more credit than deserved. Not sure about the meaning of a word? Search an online dictionary and thesaurus to find the best word for the context before using it incorrectly.
An earlier version was published by Beauty Cast Network.