So you are writing a resume and wondering what is the general objective for your resume.  Well I am here to tell you that the most general objective is for it to get read by the person or people you are sending it to in the hopes they will pass it along to the hiring manager OR another person.  Getting your resume read and not just pushed off into the “no” pile is always the main objective.

So many people think the general objective for their resume is for it to look good or have the right key terms.  Those are important for the reader but at the end of the day you want your resume to get read and passed along to the hiring person if they are not the initial reader.  In order to make this happen you need to keep the following three tips in mind:

Tip Number 1:  Think of your resume as having a personality.  This might sound a little bazaar but stay with me.  If you can think of your resume as having one personality and only one, you can write it to align with that personality.  Now I don’t mean being too creative and writing your resume with a new font or quirky layout.  What I mean is if you are an administrative assistant and want to stand out from the crowd, give an example of how you helped your boss complete a project in the last moment or how you creatively pulled off a project by getting everyone else in the department on-board.  If you don’t have these type of examples, maybe you need to get more creative in your job.  Find your unique personality and let it shine through on your resume.

Tip Number 2:  Never make a punctuation or spelling error….NEVER!  I don’t care how many people you have to hire or corral to help you edit your resume.  Do it.  You don’t want one error on that resume ever.  I see the following errors all the time and you better not have them:  punctuation, spelling, grammar (big one), alignment, font style, font size, duplicate info, not relevent info, etc.  No errors.  No more.

Tip Number 3:  The general objective for your resume is not mainly about you but about the reader.  Don’t send the same resume to all job postings or to all your friends.  Send a relevant resume for a relevant job opportunity.  Never think of your resume as mainly about you.  It is way more about the reader than it is about you.  They need to be excited about you because you fit what they need.  Not the other way around.  They don’t care what your objective is…all they care about is their own.  Make it easy for them to get what they want.

There are many different ways to look at the general objective for resume creation.  Everyone has their own style, form and function.  But at the end of the day it matters most of all what the reader wants to see and not what you want to write.

Let’s Get Started!

Jeff