Most of the job seekers consider making a resume and sending it over to recruiters as a right. But in reality, a resume is not only a critical component of the recruitment process but a powerful tool that can enhance their chances of landing a job. As a job seeker, it is through your resume you are typically and effectively conveying to the recruiters that you are the right candidate for their job.
A powerfully written Career Summary is 4-7 sentences listed at the top of a resume. It summarizes your greatest strengths, skills, abilities, and talents. A Career Objective is 1-2 sentences listed at the top of a resume that states the specific position you are interested in.
While discussing about the layout of a good resume, experts emphatically say that the best way to begin a resume is to add a Career Summary at the top. Never forget that recruiters are pressed for time in the wired, lightning-fast world of today. A well-written career summary will pique their curiosity and make them sit up. In short, a well-written career summary will convert your resume into your compass by injecting emotions into the minds of the recruiters. Such a summary will "hypnotize" them, put them into what is known as a "waking trance" and induce them to read your resume fully.
Career objectives:
You may want to know if you should include a career objective on your resume. But experts advise against including career objectives on resumes.
Reasons why you should not include your career objectives in your resume:
1. Career objectives are in general vague. Many of the recruiters also agree that they very rarely come across resumes with straight-forward objectives. According to these recruiters, most of the Job seekers seem to have a notion that if they include idealistic or lofty objectives on their resume, they stand a fair chance of landing in a good job. Unfortunately, by adding such idealistic objectives, these job seekers may lose their credibility.
Not only that, recruiters come across objectives that are "inelegantly evasive" that have been repeated by umpteen number of job seekers. Recruiters assert that such vague and obscure statements do not impress them at all. Further, since vague objectives are just concepts, recruiters cannot make out if the applicants have the competency to move from concepts to delivery.
Another problem is vague objectives can distract the recruiters. As a job seeker, your primary aim is to grab their attention but when you add such obscure objectives, their minds may start straying. This means adding objectives on your resume does not contribute in any manner to the recruitment process.
2. You may have done a lot of research about the company before sending in your application. You may have visited the website of the company and known their mission and vision also. But these are not enough to understand the company. Therefore, you cannot be certain if your objectives will gel with those of the company as well as their functioning styles.
3. Next, your resume should not be very long. By listing your career objectives on it, you will be squandering the limited space available to you.
4. As far as recruiters are concerned, you are a complete stranger. Therefore, they may not be interested in knowing about your career objectives. In fact, they may not be able to do a deep evaluation of your skills and attitude through your resume. Therefore, your objectives may not influence them much.
5. Though a few experts opine that your career objectives may provide the recruiters with insights about you, the problem is it is difficult to rightly define and concisely describe career objectives. As is often pointed out, abstractions can never be strong and so, they can never arouse emotions. So, only if you have a clear, specific objective, you can include it on your resume. But unfortunately, even limiting objectives like this may also hurt your chances.
If you violate the immutable advice of experts and make the maverick decision of adding your vague objectives on your resume, whatever chances you have for getting invited for an interview may evaporate.