Wednesday’s Q&A
Question: I’ve heard I shouldn’t use an objective on my resume – is that true?
Answer: This is a question that comes up weekly with potential clients and at every job fair, seminar and workshop I attend. Some HR, career centers and even a few resume writers still endorse Objectives in a resume but for the overwhelming majority of career professionals, the answer is NO!!
A well written resume is written with every word, from very first to the very last, focused on the employer or reader and how the job seeker can help their company. An objective statement is all about you, the job seeker. “I am looking for this”, “I want to share that”, or “I want to do this”… are all about you. By removing the title Objective Statement and using the job title as a heading or starting with a Summary paragraph that describes how your skills, qualifications and value; you’ll grab their attention and keep it.
The summary section can use a paragraph summary, bulleted skill sets, accomplishment highlights, or qualifying words held together with commas or forward-slash marks. This top area is the most read area of your resume – so make it count. For many recruiters and hiring managers if they don’t like what they see here they’ll never read the rest of the page or pages.
Do your homework so you can strategically include information in the summary area that the target company is looking for. Objective Statements focus on the writer not the reader and do not reveal your value and the reason the company needs you to work for them.
Even just a few words redirected will turn the intent around. Focus on the reader so they’ll want to focus on you!
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