Be objective about your resume career objective

Do you need a resume career objective – yes but let’s be objective

As a resume writer and recruiter, some of the career objectives I’ve read, have left me scratching my head. (I know I’ve used that line before somewhere else in this blog, but I like the way it rhymes.) Anyway, the reason I’ve scratched my head, is that from reading the resume and the career objective, I have had no idea what that candidate has wanted to do, why they wanted to it and what they could bring to an organization.

So why is a resume career objective important? A resume without a career objective is like a movie without a title.  I’m not really going to understand the movie, if I can’t at least get an idea about what I am about to see, and in fact I probably won’t watch it.  A resume career objective invites the reader in and makes all the difference to the way they read your resume. It doesn’t need to be an essay, you do need to let the rest of the resume do it’s work, but a well written resume career objective means when the recruiter reads the resume, they read it with what you want in mind.

What’s more, when I was a recruiter, I would often see so many resumes, that I did need candidates to be bold and spell out what they wanted. If they didn’t, they would only get a look-in, if their experience was a perfect match for the role at hand. So a clearly written career objective on a resume shows not only that you have given this application some thought, but that you have the confidence to announce your ambitions and what you can deliver to an employer.

You may hear other recruiters say that a career objective on a resume is pointless. However I think that’s because they are often so general and so vague that they do not mean anything. Like this one I read recently:

“To obtain a role in business, which will enable me to utilise my strong skills and expansive knowledge to make a contribution.”

There is nothing wrong in theory with what this person has written, but that’s the trouble, it sounds like theory. These are wasted words on a resume, where you do need to be careful about every word you choose. That resume career objective could be better written like this:

“To gain a graduate position in a large organization where I can apply my degree in accounting then progress to the role of management accountant.”

The bottom line is to be objective about your resume career objective. That second objective has only three more words, than the objective above it, but I’d say it has about ten times more power.

Karalyn

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Tagged as: resume, resume career objective, resume tips, secrets from recruitment consultants