your career objective – Page 2

Resume components and objective

The resume document is comprised of one or two-pages summarizing an individual’s career objectives, professional experiences and achievements, and his/her educational background. If you are the preparer of your own resume, its heading should contain your name, address and contact information, while the body of your resume should be broken into these sections: career objective, profile summary, professional experience, achievements, scholastics, and references.

While your career objective should be brief (up to two sentences), it should give your potential employers an idea of how you wish to move forward in your professional life. A concise profile or a summary should discuss who you are and how your skills and experience best apply to the job in which you are interested. The summary, as well as other parts of your resume, should not contain personal information that discloses ethnicity, sexual orientation, marital status, age, living situations, or any other personal information that is not directly related to your career.

Personal profile summary should only contain a few well-written sentences that convey what you can bring to the table in terms of the specific job for which you have applied. It is recommended that you use this section to attract the employer’s attention, but don’t go overboard in trying to be creative; keep it professional. Your experience listing should include information on one to five jobs you’ve held, starting with your current or last job, and listing previous positions in chronological order.

More about the resume

In addition, your education should include college, graduate and post-graduate work, as well as any courses or professional certifications which are relevant to your career development. Achievements, volunteer positions, publications and interests should be listed only if they are relevant to your professional work experience; and references should be listed if requested; best practices suggest not to list generic statements about references being available upon request as this is understood. Keep the information relevant and concise ion order to present your well-written resume to potential employers.

The Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Curriculum Vitae or CV is a collection of documents that describe your education and professional history, focusing on your achievements and showcasing higher level of detail than a resume. Individuals who typically use CV as a form of application are those seeking positions in education, entrance into graduate and post-graduate programs, and/or research; and they are required, in most cases, to discuss their professional philosophies.

While resumes are often limited to one or two pages, a CV is comprised of a compilation of documents, and has no limit on length; which means it can extend over several pages (typically four or five pages, but can be more based on experience and achievements). In this respect a Curriculum Vitae contains similar information as your resume, but it places greater emphasis on education and scholastic accomplishments.

Philosophically speaking

Unlike your resume, a CV would contain information on scholarships you may have received; texts or research you have completed and published; grants you received; community and volunteer work; teaching philosophy; and other such academic work. You will begin by listing your career objective, in summary form, to showcase the level of commitment you have to your goals and the steps/actions you are willing to take in order to achieve them.

If you are applying for a teaching position, for example, you would provide a brief outline of your teaching philosophy. Immediately following your goals, you’d list your achievements, highlighting your education first. Here, you can mention your thesis project or dissertation, courses that support your career objective, publications and research (in progress or completed), certifications, studies abroad, languages, etc.

In concluding your CV

Following the goals and achievements section should be a section for your experience which should emphasize a work history that supports your career objective. This should be the extent to which you go in providing information and therefore should conclude your CV. If you are unsure which form of application to use, do the appropriate research and create a resume or CV that best fits the format commonly accepted in your industry.

Resume objectivity vs. self-promotion

Anyone who has ever written a resume will probably agree that writing one of these documents is in many ways a process of self-discovery, because when you really give it some serious and more profound thought, writing a resume is actually the process by which you market yourself to your potential employers, which in itself is a very difficult task, since we have to walk the fine line between objectivity and self-promotion. That having been said, please read on as we will elaborate a little more on this aspect of resume writing.

Your resume must summarize the educational achievements, professional experiences, and adequate-to-the-task qualifications – inherent as well as acquired – in a way that best meets your career objective. Composing your entire professional history on one or two pages can be time consuming, because we often spend hours and sometimes days writing and re-writing our resumes in order to make the content and format as perfect as we can possibly get it before the resume reaches potential employers.

about resumes, cover letters and interviews

However, after looking at the same content over and over, it can become rather easy for us to miss some very simple typos and grammatical errors; or even poorly written statements that may raise questions in the mind of a hiring manager. Before posting your resume on job search sites, or submitting it to companies in which you are interested to work, it may be in your best interest to have someone else review it.

Boundaries and goals for your resume review

This, of course, can be a scary thought in the sense that while you may want help and feedback from your friend on one hand, you may be concerned that, on the other hand, s/he will dislike something aesthetic and you will feel the pressure to make one or more formatting changes; especially after you have already spent a considerable amount of time on your resume and really don’t want to have to start over. There is however, a method you can use to prevent such a scary thought scenario from ever occurring.

about resumes, cover letters and interviews

Consider for a moment that you know the benefit(s) that can be derived from having someone else review your resume. If this is the case, you should set some boundaries and goals for that review by ask about specific things which are of concern to you. In other words, if you know that grammar isn’t your strongest asset, ask your friend(s) to proofread the content; and the same method can be used for any gaps in your work history; simply ask your friend to act as a potential employer and review the resume and cover letter together.

Make sure your “reviewer” friends know exactly what you need them to do; ask if they have any questions about your work history, or have you addressed everything in your cover letter? Accept feedback about content, but make sure that your friends are raising valid questions about the statements you’re making. If they suggest that you change an action word, can they give you a valid reason behind the change? Or is the reasoning based on their personal preference? Don’t get into an argument over formatting; just do your research ahead of time and know what the acceptable resume style is for your field.

The benefit of a resume writing service

It is also beneficial that you have more than one additional person review your resume before you send it to your potential employers. This helps you in recognizing whether or not the feedback is based on personal preferences or professional concerns. Ideally, the person you ask for help should have experience in your chosen field, and can therefore help ensure that the action words or phrases you have chosen are appropriate for your industry and position level.

If you are unsure that you are on the right track with your resume, and you feel the research you have done is overwhelming and not helpful, seek assistance from a professional resume writing service. A professional resume writer should be able to help guide you in the right direction, revise your current resume or create a new well-written resume for you. Make sure that the professional you are working with can provide you with references and samples, and that they are well versed in writing resumes for professionals in your field of work.

While the resume writing service option requires you to pay for assistance from someone elss, it can prove to be a more beneficial option in the long run. Of curse, you can also serve as your own resume editor by stepping away from the resume document for a while, give yourself some time – usually a day or two – between writing the resume and then reviewing it. This allows you to be more objective as you review the final draft of your resume, because you are not as intimately involved with it at the moment of review, as you would be immediately after completing a draft.

Keep resume mistakes to yourself, don’t share them with employers!

No matter what option of review you chose, make sure that you do in fact review your resume before submitting it to your potential employer; because you certainly don’t want your hiring manager to catch your mistakes, do you? An error-free and otherwise well-written resume is more likely to get you noticed, and help you secure the job you really want.