Home
| Work & Business
| Hiring & Job Training
| Write a Resume
| Help With Writing Resume Objectives
Help With Writing Resume Objectives
by Jason Reeher
-
Overview
A resume objective is an opportunity to showcase how you perceive your career unfolding. You will not get a better chance to quickly and concisely demonstrate your potential value to prospective employers. A resume objective is the first part of your resume where you really get to be creative; as such, you will want to avoid the pitfalls of hackneyed expressions in favor of a statement of your specific skills.
-
Getting Started
Especially in a tight job market, your resume is your ticket to a better position. Regardless of whether you are a college student seeking your first opportunity or a mid-level manager looking for a change of scenery, your resume objective serves a vital role. When a potential employer reads your career objective, she will either understand how you will fit in with the organization--or not.
Before composing your career objective, consider the traditional placement of the statement. Most resume formats include the career objective immediately after the contact information, and prior to other summations of education and experience. This makes sense; after all, the prospective employer will read your career objective early in the examination of the resume, cementing a crucial early impression of your goals.
-
Crafting the Language
It will be helpful to think of your resume objective in two facets: your own hopes and goals for a career, and how those will fit into an employer's business plan. The writer's workshop at Purdue University explains that effective resumes are persuasive writing, meaning that your objective must have a purpose and be directed at a specific audience.
Consider the following objective, for example: "A career in city government administration, with an emphasis on economic revitalization through grant-writing." This is a strong and effective resume objective. It covers both the individual's own goals (a city government career) and addresses why a city council would want to hire this applicant (economic revitalization is something that most cities want and need). Finally, the example shows that the applicant even has a focused plan for his prospective bosses: grant-writing skills that can land the city the funds that they need for improvements. Craft your own resume objective to not only show where you want to go, but how those goals fit into something that the company or organization will want and need.
-
Avoiding Pitfalls
Two of the biggest pitfalls of writing resume objectives are overused phrases and being too safe. Employers view anywhere from dozens to thousands of resumes each year; human resources departments therefore have seen it all before when it comes to job applicants. Avoid phrases such as "a challenging career," or "opportunity for advancement," when you are writing your resume. Every applicant is looking for these things. You only waste precious space and an opportunity to impress when you delve into such hackneyed expressions.
Precisely because the resume objective is an opportunity to impress, you will want to be confident when crafting the statement. Think of what your prospective employer is trying to accomplish with their business. How can you help achieve that mission? Stating your future plans in the resume objective is not bragging. Rather, a concise resume objective signals to the firm that you understand what they are all about. Be bold, not boring, when writing your resume objective.
