What to Say for Your Objective on a Resume

The Difference in a Career Summary & an Objective on a Resume

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Traditionally, job seekers have successfully used objective statements on resumes to land new employment, but the use of summary statements instead is increasingly becoming the modern alternative. Many hiring managers avoid reading the objective section, according to data collected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Executive Office Labor and Workforce Development. The resume is your career story, and you want to make an informed choice about how you will introduce yourself to prospective employers.

Purpose

Objective statements tell managers what you want from the company: "Recent college graduate seeking entry-level position in accounting." Summary statements tell managers what you can do and what value you can bring to the company: "Accurate bookkeeping skills"; "Knowledge of back office accounting"; "Generate critical financial reports." Your career goals and development are noteworthy and lauded by many hiring managers, but their immediate concern is to fill vacant jobs with the most skilled candidates.

Hiring-Employer Specific

The objective statement can be so self-centered that it gets overlooked by hiring officials. Summary statements, meanwhile, often include keywords that are familiar to hiring managers and their companies. These words are usually sprinkled throughout job advertisements. Hiring employers sometimes use applicant-tracking programs that sort and extract submitted resumes from a pile, looking for applicants who closely match the qualifications and skills needed for the job opening. Resumes with keyword-dense summary statements may rise to the top of the pile faster than verbose objective statements that include words irrelevant to the job opening.

Statement Construction

Objective statements are written as nearly complete sentences or well-designed fragments in paragraph form. Summary statements are often listed as a series of short four-to-five word phrases, either in paragraph or bulleted form. Hiring managers sometimes work on limited time schedules, and being able to easily pinpoint relevant skills in the resume's summary statement can expedite the screening phase, to your benefit. However, some managers may have a genuine interest in where you've been and where you're going in your career, and don't mind reading wordy objectives.

Resume Format Variation

In general, using objectives and summaries is an either-or decision. For example, career changers and entry-level workers might benefit from an objective statement because they may lack past work experience. Seasoned workers can beat out the competition by bombarding the top of the resume with a summary of skills. Alternatively, job seekers might consider using both sections as a part of the hybrid format that combines both the traditional chronological and functional styles. Just about any job seeker can use the hybrid format to his advantage -- students, experienced workers, career changers, people with no experience and older workers.

References

Resources

Writer Bio

Damarious Page is a financial transcriptionist specializing in corporate quarterly earnings and financial results. Page holds a medical transcription certificate and has participated in an extensive career analysis and outplacement group workshop through Right Management. The West Corporation trained and certified him to handle customer support for home appliance clients.

What to Say for Your Objective on a Resume

Source: https://work.chron.com/difference-career-summary-objective-resume-7831.html

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