An Effective Resume Objective Can Make a Big Difference

A missing or lame Objective section can get your resume tossed in the trash in a matter of seconds. There are quite simply too many better resumes out there to bother. Yet most job seekers screw this up terribly.

The basics are thus: toward the top just above or just underneath your "Keyword Competencies" paragraph, put your "Objective" section which is quite simply the object of your job search, the title of the job you are seeking.

Here's a Bad Example: Most people put in a title (like "Software Developer" or, "Lighthouse Keeper" or, "Marketing Director" or "Product Manager" or "NASCAR Pit Boss" in some long droning sentence that reads like:

Objective: "Challenging opportunity as a (title) where I can effectively use my managing and sales skills in my ongoing effort to help grow an organization, blah, blah"

This is not only boring, its also highly ineffective. Your resume has only so much available space and your potential reader so little available time. This sort of verbiage does not transmit key information that will widen your net.

Use the "Objective" to do one thing, focus on your objective.

Here's a Better Example: Instead of just filling out the target title as "JAVA Programmer" for instance, also list other closely allied titles that the searcher may be searching on. For instance:

Objective: "Java Programmer, Software Engineer, Application Developer, Software Developer."

Use each section in your resume to answer one question only. By putting several potential titles in the Objective heading (and leaving out the skill-set info of the first example), you tighten up your focus and you widen your net. Even within larger companies, there may be several different job requisitions at any one time. For example, it hasnt been uncommon for a company to have concurrent openings for "Java Programmer", "Software Developer", "Software Engineer", all of which you may well be qualified for. So dont limit yourself with your objective title. Use this space to your best advantage and you will reap greater returns.

Summary: Wow, that was pretty easy wasnt it? But you know, most of your competitors in the job search process DONT DO THIS SIMPLE THING. Add this improvement to your resume today and youll find yourself out of the lost resume abyss and back in the game and closer to getting that job you really want.