9 Tips and Examples for Writing a Killer Career Objective in Resume

Tips and Examples for Writing a Killer Career Objective in Resume

Welcome back to the Professional Sample, which is all about helping you to create a career and life that you freaking love now. Today’s Blog is highly requested. It’s all about how to write the summary section or career objective for your resume.

I know, I get it you’re experienced and dedicated and you’re looking for work in the “X” sector and you’re looking to further your experiences in all of these phrases. Unfortunately from all of the old-school and just overused templates on the internet just aren’t having any impact. They’re not making a good first impression any more.

Previously known as the career objective of resume section, but if you follow my blog, if you’re a subscriber. You know that the resume objective section does not exist anymore. An objective section is super selfish.

It’s all about I want this job. I want to grow and develop. This is what I’m hoping for in my career. And what we’re doing is, we’re flipping the script and we’re making it all about what they need and how we can meet that need.

Convince the recruiters in 6 Seconds

Because guess what a recruiter on average receives 300 applications per job posting and they call maybe what like 10% of them for a phone interview maybe less.

So if you can’t convince them in the six seconds that they spend on average skimming your resume for the first time you’re gonna lose out on opportunities. So in this blog, I’m gonna teach you how to put yourself in the shoes of a hiring manager who’s thinking to themselves, I really need a candidate who is blah blah blah.  And you’re going to be able to respond to that statement.

You may also read: 5 Proven Strategy to Write a Winning Resume

Sound Original

I want to make sure that you can answer that statement in a way that’s uniquely you and actually sounds like you and it sounds original and it’s not using overused clichés. I want to make sure though that you’ll stay right to the end of this blog because I’ve got a bonus tip for you a complete example of a really killer summary and some advice for you.

If you’re thinking about changing careers or pivoting but before jumping in to what makes a really really effective first impression powerful summary statement that sums up your career objective stories and shows them that you are the person for the job.

Before we jump into that I want to give you an example of what a really bad one looks like and we’ve all been guilty of being this person because listen up I’m sure it sounds pretty familiar.

If you’re a subscriber on the blog, you may have seen this example before because it’s just such a classic, so relatable that we’ve all had objective sections or summaries whatever you want to call them that look and sound like this and they really really shouldn’t because you know, what makes this so bad? What level is this person? What industry are they going for? What’s the main purpose of their role that they’re trying to apply for and was the proof that they can do it?

You know, like it’s so vague. So generic you really could be going for basically any company in the world at any level, it’s just not helpful. In fact, it’s just a waste of precious space on your resume.

Avoid Cliche paragraphs

The worst thing about it though is that we’ve all been guilty of this and it just kind of looks like the classic summary section, that recruiters see over and over again, and when they start to see the same format the same words being used, it loses its impact.

It’s not interesting, it is boring actually if your personal statement or summary is starting with buzzwords, so hard-working, Passionate, professional, anything like that. It’s a huge warning sign that things need to change.

I know and I get it you’re experienced and dedicated and you’re looking for work in “X” sector and you’re looking to further your experiences in all of these phrases.

Unfortunately from all of the old-school and just overuse templates on the internet just aren’t having any impact. They’re not making a good first impression any more. If I’m the hiring manager, I need to know that you are talking to me directly. I need to know that you really want this one day hopefully I’m gonna get to know you.

Describe who you are.

I’m gonna get to know who you are and your desires and where you want to grow and, where you want to take your career, but for now? I want you to talk to me and tell me how you can do the job and why you’d make such a good contribution to my team.

So therefore at least get into what you should do when crafting a really killer summary for your resume. So in general, I want you to get to the point really quickly.

This does not have to be paragraphs long, it should be one paragraph in maximum. Maybe three to four lines. I want you to show the impact and the power that you are able to bring to the organization, and how you do things in your unique way, it’s always really good to include one major accomplishment because it makes things really tangible and really specific and bonus points if it tells a mini-story.

So we’re gonna jump into the actual format of the summary now. Let’s try and break down a really good summary format. Let’s start with figuring out what you do who you are, and what’s your thing?

So what are you specialized in? What are you passionate about? What’s your greatest driver? I’m gonna give you two concrete examples here.

So when you’re trying to craft this kind of sentence, what I really want you to do is ask yourself. What do people say that I’m really good at? What’s my thing? What do I often get really positive feedback on? What do I love the most about my job? What gets me out of bed in the morning? What do I naturally tend to enjoy doing?

If you’re really struggling you can even ask your friends or colleagues. Can you describe me in three words? What would you say and see what comes up? You’ve got to remember guys that the hiring manager wants to know two things.

Expectations of hiring managers

One, can you do the job, and two, do I want to do the job with you? Are you gonna be a great fit on the team? Will you fit in around here? You’re a human being so they know what you’re excellent at, but they also want to know a little bit about what drives you far beyond.

Hiring managers need to know that you’re up for a bit of a challenge and you’re gonna be there in the team beside them and they’re gonna want to have you there, and they need to know that there’s something bigger driving you than just a paycheck.

So they need to know what it is that you’re specialized in particularly passionate about or what you’ve dedicated your entire career to date, so that they can really say okay, so above and beyond the job itself this person has a bigger mission or purpose and it’s this what we’re trying to do is build the kind of resume that invites an Organization to you not because of what you can do but also because of who you are.

So going into the next part of the summary now, so we’ve open strong with what we do and what was specialized in now, we’ve got to talk about how we do things differently. This is all about the value you bring, how you approach things differently, and your strengths. We’re gonna back it up with the proof point or an accomplishment as well. I’m gonna get into some really concrete examples for you, so you can understand exactly what I mean.

And honestly, you don’t need to have huge amounts of experience to make this work. Think about this example from a master student who was studying fashion and luxury and she did on the side is retail jobs. So working in a clothing shop a master’s degree in luxury and fashion management and other 18 months of hands-on work experience as a retail assistant has shaped me to be relentlessly customer-focused, commercially savvy, and a self-confessed data Junkie.

So what you want to do here is take some of your biggest accomplishments and think about what that says about you and you want to choose the accomplishment that highlights the right things that the hiring manager is looking for in this particular position.

Don’t use these old-fashioned lines that, I’m organized. I am a problem solver. I’m innovative you don’t even need to use the words they get it, so again, if you’re gonna use these words like I’m commercially savvy or I’m this or I’m that.

Use Real-Time Experiences

Choose the example of the experience or the Proof point that backs it up and I always want you to train think with these accomplishments. What’s the return on investment, right? What’s the impact you made? Did you save money? Did you save time? Did you increase customer satisfaction? Were you responsible for a budget of 1 million dollars whatever it is, but what value did you add to organizations?

Because managers want people who deliver results and they want an ROI, so if they’re gonna take the risk of hiring you and they’re gonna bring you onto their team and use the budget to pay your salary, they want to know that it’s going to be worth it.

Now the next sentence of a killer summary is really about what you want next and I told you not to be you know, self-centered and say well what I want and what I want on my career, but you are gonna tell them what you want next because you want to show that you’ve got ambition and vision, but it’s going to be the problem that they need solving.

So what you want is actually what they need so again some concrete examples for you.

So what’s your ideal next step? But what do they need? So why are they hiring this role? So they’re not hiring a graduate trainee in retail just for fun, right? They’re not a charity. They’re our business.

What do they want you to do? They want you to create, amazing customer experiences so that their customers keep coming back for more, so that’s what you need to say that you need to match what they want.

Understand ATS (Application Tracking Systems)

Now when you’re going back and having a look at your summary what I want you to do is make sure that it’s packed with keywords related to the job so that it gets past any Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) that it might be going through. So these are the robots that are scanning your resume before they even get seen by a real person to decide whether or not it’s worthy of putting your resume in front of the eyes of a real recruiter.

Match your Career Objective with job descriptions

So I want you to go back to the job description and really highlight the language and keywords that they’re using and make sure that some of those keywords are really included in your summary section as well.

Of course, you can include them in your experience and your job titles and in other areas but I want a few in here as well and a really cool hack for that is to have a really Punchy summary section and then just on the bottom you can say something like, ask me about all the zones of expertise or even just have the words separated by vertical bars the Keywords and really zones of technical or industry expertise that you can bring to the table

So for example for a technical project manager role down the bottom, they may have words like Project Management Agile, Scrum stand-up meetings, stakeholder engagement.

If you’re going for more of a fashion writer role you might say something like fashion blogging events photography, etc. It depends on what the role needs but you are going to really highlight those keys and just put them in there.

If they are genuinely linked to things that you have learnt about or actually worked and of course they have to be genuine. But make sure that they are there on your resume.

Bonus Tips

Now I told you for the people who stay ’till the end. You’re going to get a bonus tip. And here it is, something that’s really effective is if you have someone else to sell you.

Now what I mean by this is do you have a piece of feedback from your manager from a client from some kind of? Testimonial or something on your work. Do you have someone who’s written some kind of recommendation? So think, have you ever written the outcome of you know, mid-year and annual performance reviews? Maybe there are some interesting quotes captured in there. Maybe you’ve done a customer feedback survey. Maybe you worked in training and events and you had the feedback forms coming after the events, or maybe it’s simply just sitting there and your email inbox.

Do you have words from someone in another venue? Who sells you because if you think about it, the CEO of L’Oreal, Jean-Paul Agon. He doesn’t sell L’Oreal Emma Watson sells L’Oreal you know Cheryl Cole sells L’Oreal like famous people sell L’Oreal because if you’ve got Jean-Paul Agon sending there being like, you know, our products are incredible. They’re really amazing. It’s really hard to sell your own stuff.

What’s awesome is when other people are like I believe in this person or I believe in this product and I recommend it, that’s when people are gonna buy right. So if you’re the product if you’ve all been marketed, it’s good if someone can endorse you on LinkedIn.

So, again, let me give you a really pragmatic example to show you exactly what I mean on this.

One International HR professional with eight years’ experience and a healthy obsession for digital learning specialized in creating on gauging Gamified bite-size digital learning modules. Here’s a taste of what my happy internal clients have to say. I usually hate online learning modules and just click Next Next Next to get through them this e-learning was completely different the Gamification,  interactivity, and content made me want to learn and made it easier to remember user feedback on project X L’oréal Wanting to further deepen my expertise in learning design.

That my friends is an example of a killer summary. Now for career changes or pivoters who may not have the exact Experience and accomplishments that line up to their future desired role completely.

Here’s a tip for you. What I still want you to do is summarize what you’re really good at. Of course you want to make it more in the mindset of where you want to go? So really picking out those transferable skills, but what you can do is almost have a few killer sentences like we’ve talked about in the blog.

But then have a section that says what I’m most proud of or career highlights and then you’re actually going to take up a lot more space. Let’s say a More direct move and you’re going to take a chunk of around three to five bullet points and you’re going to put accomplishments achievements impact that you’ve had on various different roles in the past that highlight those transferable skills.

So you can say something like communication skills, proof point, project management skills proof point, stakeholder relationships proof point. It’s not necessarily having to say like well I was in the context of a completely different job But you’re highlighting those transferable skills and the proof points that go with them and you’re gonna have a slightly longer summary.

So guys, I hope that’s taken some of the mystery away of what’s involved in having a really killer summary section for your resume.

If you want more tips and tricks and advice on how to craft a really compelling Resume, something that makes you stand out you can grab my freebie in the description box down belowThere’s nothing stopping you. It’s called Killer Resume cheat sheet and it’s all yours.

 I’ll see you guys next time. Bye