Developing a Career Objective for your Resume

Advantages for Developing a Career Objective

• The career objective gives a brief introduction for the purpose of your resume. It specifies your goals and ambitions.

• The career objective is a very important entity in your resume because it makes you think about what you want from a professional standpoint.
- Position - the position you wish to seek
- Duties - the skills that you wish to perform
- Company - the size/location of organization you wish to work for

• The career objective should be focused on your abilities, skills, and strengths.

• Hiring Managers are very busy and cannot afford to waste any time. By placing a career objective on your resume, it makes the hiring manager more efficient. The hiring manager will not search your resume to figure out your job objectives and goals.

• Do not depend on your cover letter to act as an objective statement. Many times your cover letter and resume get separated and are examined by two different individuals.

• The career objective has the greatest benefit for recent graduates and individuals looking to change careers.
- If you are a recent graduate, you can state that in your objective.
- If you are looking to change careers, you can indicate the skills that you have learned and how they will help you in the career change.

Strategies for Developing a Career Objective

• Be Specific! A vague objective makes you look uncertain and unclear.

• Create your objective as “job-centered” rather than “I-centered”. The employer wants to know how they will profit from hiring you, not what you profit by being hired.

• The career objective can be 1- 3 lines in text.

• Remember this is an introduction about you, so you want to tell the hiring manager the skills and abilities that you possess.

• Focus the career objective on the needs of the employer. Tailor it to the position for which you are applying.
- Focus on one functional area – In your objective statement, do not list two different positions. Example: Do not list marketing or sales. State one or the other. If you are interested in two different positions, make two separate cover letters and resumes because two different people may be the hiring managers.

• Remember that hiring manager sorts through hundreds of resumes, so keep it short and to the point.

Reasons for Omitting an Objective Statement

• You can omit the objective statement if you are uncertain and use this section to highlight other abilities that you may have.

• It is better to leave off the objective if you are too vague, but remember, hiring managers are not willing to search through your resume to find your objective or goals.