Posts Tagged ‘Objective Statement’

There’s a post up at one of my favorite sites, Secrets of the Job Hunt, that is written by Jessica Miller-Merrell from Blogging for Jobs. It has some advice for Increasing your Odds (‘Standing Out From the Crowd’ in Gradversity-speak) when it comes to your job search.

I’ve read this two or three times and found it polarizing. One one hand it has some great advice, but on the other hand, it has some advice that I don’t necessarily argree with.

So what do I like? I really like her advice on your resume format:

Include bullets, open space, dates, and quantitative numbers on your resume. Avoid spelling errors, unprofessional email addresses, and a format that is not easily skimmed and no more than 2 pages.

This is good, solid advice. I particularily like the part about “unprofessional email addresses”. This advice is twice as important for New Grads to two different reasons.

First, if your email is inappropriate in the sense that it is unprofessional (ie. beerguzzler29384@yahoo.com), don’t use it for your job search.

Second, a different type of inappropriate address, in my opinion, is one that gives away too much information that can potentially be used against you. For instance, if you are using your school email account, one that will expire on, or shortly after graduation, you may be setting yourself up for premature rejection. If you are hunting for unposted jobs, and are competing against more experienced candidates, these school email addresses may in fact be the basis for bias against you. Try to use an address that’s neutral in our job search.

So what don’t I like? Her advice on objective statements:

Include an Objective in your online profile. An objective describes what career opportunity as well as industry you are interested in learning more about. Recruiters spend roughly 10 seconds or less per resume. Keep your objective simple, direct and to the point.

Now, I’m not against this advice because it is bad. However, I believe that objective statements have “Jumped the Shark”, so to speak. They don’t add anything to you application that isn’t already known by the recruiter or employer (the fact that they have your resume proves this). Instead, try out a personal branding statement or omit the objective statement altogether.

But hey, that’s just my opinion.