Be objective about your resume career objective

How to create a great resume career objective.

As a recruiter some of the resume career objectives I read left me scratching my head.

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.

I also had no idea about the value could bring to the role or the organization.

That means I need to start to think and translate this person’s experience to see whether it matches the role at hand.

While my role as a recruiter is to do that, the person who’s most likely to get a look in, is the person who can quickly explain the value they can add, starting with a clearly expressed career objective on their resume.

Why should you read this blog post.

In this blog post I”ll cover 5 things.

1. Why you should create a resume career objective

2. Bad examples of a resume career objective and why the example is bad

3. Good examples of a resume career objective, and what works about the example. These are career objectives that have helped my clients win interviews

4. Rules to help you create a powerful resume career objective

5. How you can use our myPitch app to create a forward looking career objective for your resume and for interviews.

1. Why you should create a resume career objective.

Skip this bit if you just want to find out how to write one.

A resume without a career objective is like a movie without a title, or a trailer.

I’m not really going to understand why I should watch 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. It makes a big difference to the way the recruiter reads your resume.

An career objective does not need to be an essay, you do need to let the rest of the resume do it’s work, but a succinct and well written objective means when the recruiter reads the resume, they read it with what you want in mind.

Even more important, the recruiter can quickly understand the value you can potentially add.

When I was a recruiter, I would see so many resumes.  I really needed candidates to be bold and spell out what they wanted. So a clearly written career objective on a resume shows not only that you have given this application some detailed thought (always good), but that you have the confidence to announce your ambitions and what you can deliver to an employer.

2. Examples of bad resume career objectives.

Here’s an example of a badly written career objective.

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

This just sounds like wishy washy theory.

The career objective does not state specifically which strong skills and expansive knowledge the applicant would like to use. These are wasted words on a resume, where you do need to be careful about every word you choose.

Here’s another example of a bad resume career objective.

“An outstanding Manager with extensive global experience expertise. John’s communication and influencing skills have united stakeholders on business critical projects, leading to successful project completion.  His strong management capability and project management skills have also been pivotal in successfully managing a company and transforming teams with over 50 staff to deliver engagement rates of 80% plus. John has managed diverse team members in different locations. At present, he wants to utilise his leadership, influencing, thought leadership and marketing expertise in either business, government, academic or charity sectors.”

At first glance this may sound reasonable, but apart from the repeated words and waffle, the issue with this career objective is that it’s waaaaay too general.

You are more likely to get an interview if you understand the role you are applying for, and explain the value you can add to that particular role.

So saying “business, government, academic or charity sectors” is not convincing.

Also in this career objective, there’s information that would be better placed in other areas of the resume, such as achievements (“80% + engagement rates”) and expertise (stakeholder engagement).

3. Examples of good resume career objectives.

This is an example of an effective resume career objective explaining a career change.

“Having recently achieved Distinctions in HR studies, along with winning award nominations through demonstrating dedication to consistently providing exemplary levels of customer service interpreting complex and detailed travel policies in fast-paced corporate support and sales environments; ideally positioned to add value as a Coordinator effectively managing internal policy inquiries in an internal corporate HR service centre.”

This career objective helped this person secure an interview for a number of reasons.

This person had thought specifically about what they could bring from their past into their new career choice in HR. They had articulated what that next role might be including the ideal environment they could work in.

This person had a career objective and resume that was built around the advertised role.

Here’s another example that worked for a global CFO.

“Global CFO with 15 + years’ success delivering growth in diverse operations across international markets for new projects and Greenfield sites; a record of challenging the status-quo, recognizing and executing innovative solutions; strategic and hands-on financial management skills; ideally positioned to build markets and deliver growth for organisations at the start of a global expansion or transformation.”

This resume career objective succeeded because this person demonstrated a high degree of self awareness, specifically around which part of the business cycle they could add the most value in.

Each and every word in the career objective were important skills to highlight for someone who was able to drive global expansion.

Another reason that it is better to be more specific than general is that when you have a track record at a senior level and are looking for a role, a recruiter sees it as a given that you can deliver. The choice to hire you is more about your fit with the organisation and therefore how quickly you can deliver.

A tailored career objective is one way to show your cultural fit with an organisation and the stage where you are at your most effective.

Here’s an example of a graduate’s career objective.

“With an honours degree in Accounting, skills gained in previous career investigating immigration applications requiring attention to detail and an ability to understand complex law and individuals’ circumstances; plus a work ethic demonstrated by extensive extra-curricular activities; career ambitions are to investigate problems and highlight issues with risk, commencing as an Audit Graduate with a professional services firm.”

4. Rules around resume career objectives.

Rule 1. Keep it short, you want people to read it.

Rule 2. Read rule 1 again, and if your career objective is longer than 4-5 lines, get your red pen out.

Rule 3. Think about what how you’ve done in the past will allow you to add value in the future.

Rule 5. Your objective is much more about other people than you.

Rule 6. Make sure your career objective matches the role you are applying for. This means you need to be serious about each and every application you send.

Rule 7. Don’t copy other people’s objectives off the internet, you won’t sound like you – and that’s a charisma killer.

5. Still stuck? Try our new app myPitch for some career objective examples.

When we talk about a career objective, essentially the recruiter is asking you the question “tell me about yourself.”

We’ve created a tool that will help you sell yourself within 30 seconds.

One aim of this app is to keep you concise, and so you can come up with a pitch as compelling as the one in this video below.

So if you have an iPhone click this link to download myPitch if you have an Android click this link to download myPitch and take a look at the videos we’ve filmed for each stage in your career.

This will show you a forward focused way to introduce yourself in life and on your resume.

Try it out and feel free to come back and tell me what you think.

 

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