August 12, 2010
Lose Your Objective
I am often asked whether the inclusion of an objective on a resume is worthwhile. My answer is always no. A lot of job seekers are resistant to this message. I think there is something psychologically pleasing to using objectives. Sort of a, “Hi there and howdy do,” ice breaker. Gets the person writing the resume warmed up before the big dive into the more problematic resume details, like work history and achievements.
But here is the problem. Every single millimeter of your resume is prime real estate. You need to use that space to sell yourself and communicate to potential employers that you are absolutely the best candidate for the job. And objectives don’t help you to accomplish those worthy goals.
By their very nature, objectives are either too general, “To secure a challenging and rewarding position with a dynamic organization,” or, so specific and rambling that they begin to read either like a brag board or a personal journal entry.
In either case, here is my reaction: skip over it. To me, I just say a mental duh when I see an objective on a resume. I know your objective already. You want a job. Specifically, the job I have posted. I trust that you’ve done your homework and know that you are an exact match to the position. My polls with many other human resources professionals show they agree, an objective is a skip-worthy part of your resume.
Do you really want to take up the prime of the prime real estate, the very top of your resume, on something that will be skipped over?
No! If you feel like you need an introduction before the work history portion of your resume, I suggest a BRIEF executive summary or a BRIEF list of key accomplishments. This information should not be repeated elsewhere in the resume. Focus on brevity—six or seven lines of text in not brief. Think about it. That could be one entire work history! Brief means two, three, or at the very outside, four lines of text.
Trust that human resources professionals are smart and savvy. They are. They know why you are taking the time to send them your resume. Forget the objective and use the little space that you have to clearly outline and sell your value.
I hope that I have achieved my objective to convince you that you don’t need to waste space on an objective.
