• THE OBJECTIVE
  • THE SUMMARY
  • SKILLS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

OBJECTIVE

Ideally, your resume should be pointed toward conveying why you are the perfect candidate for one specific job or job title. Like good advertising, a good resume is directed toward a very specific target audience – your next employer.

Targeting your resume requires that you be absolutely clear about your career direction--or at least that you appear to be clear. The way to demonstrate your clarity of direction or apparent clarity is to have the first major topic of your resume be your OBJECTIVE.

Let's look at a real world example. Suppose the owner of a small recruitment company puts an ad on SEEK.com looking an experienced recruitment. A week later they have received 500 resumes. The applicants have a bewildering variety of backgrounds. Then they come across a resume in the pile that starts with the following:

"OBJECTIVE - a recruitment position in an organization seeking an extraordinary record of generating new accounts, exceeding sales targets and enthusiastic client relations.

This wakes them up. They are immediately interested. This first sentence conveys some very important and powerful messages: "I want exactly the job you are offering. I am a superior candidate because I recognize the qualities that are most important to you, and I have them. I want to make a contribution to your company." This works well because the employer is smart enough to know that someone who wants to do exactly what they are offering will be much more likely to succeed than someone who doesn't. And that person will probably be a lot more pleasant to work with as well.

Secondly, this candidate has done a good job of establishing why they are the perfect candidate in their first sentence. They have thought about what qualities would make a candidate stand out. They have started communicating that they are that person immediately. What's more, they are communicating from the point of view of making a contribution to the employer.

Be sure the objective is to the point. Do not use fluffy phrases that are obvious or do not mean anything.

Remember, your resume will only get a few seconds attention, at best! You have to generate interest right away, in the first sentence they lay their eyes on. Having an objective statement that really sizzles is highly effective. And it's simple to do. One format is:

If you are making a career change or have a limited work history, you want the employer to immediately focus on where you are going, rather than where you have been. If you are looking for another job in your present field, it is more important to stress your qualities, achievements and abilities first.

THE SUMMARY

The "Summary" or "Summary of Qualifications" consists of several concise statements that focus the reader's attention on the most important qualities, achievements and abilities you have to offer. Those qualities should be the most compelling demonstrations of why they should hire you instead of the other candidates. It gives you a brief opportunity to highlight a few of your most outstanding qualities.

This is the spiciest part of the resume. This may be the only section fully read by the employer, so it should be very strong and convincing. The "Summary" is the one place to include professional characteristics (extremely energetic, a gift for solving complex problems in a fast-paced environment, a natural salesman, exceptional interpersonal skills, committed to excellence.) which may be helpful in winning the interview. Gear every word in the "Summary" to your targeted goal.

The most common ingredients of a well-written "Summary" are as follows. Of course, you would not use all these ingredients in one "Summary." Use the ones that highlight you best.

    • A short phrase describing your profession
    • Followed by a statement of broad or specialised expertise
    • Followed by two or three additional statements related to any of the following:
      • breadth or depth of skills
      • unique mix of skills
      • range of environments in which you have experience
      • a special or well-documented accomplishment
      • a history of awards, promotions, or superior performance commendations
    • One or more professional or appropriate personal characteristics
    • A sentence describing professional objective or interest.

SKILLS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

In this final part of the assertions section of your resume, you go into more detail. You are still writing to sell yourself to the reader, not to inform them. Basically, you do exactly what you did in the previous section, except that you go into more detail.

In the summary, you focused on your most special highlights. Now you tell the rest of the best of your story.Let them know what results you produced, what happened as a result of your efforts, what you are especially gifted or experienced at doing. Flesh out the most important highlights in your summary.

There are a number of different ways to structure "Skills and Accomplishments" sections. In all of these styles, put your skills and accomplishments in order of importance for the desired career goal. If you have many skills, the last skill paragraph might be called "Additional Skills."

RESUME FORMATS

There are three basic types of resumes: Chronological, Functional, and "combined" Chronological - Functional.

CHRONOLOGICAL

The chronological resume is the more traditional structure for a resume. The Experience section is the focus of the resume; each job (or the last several jobs) is described in some detail, and there is no major section of skills or accomplishments at the beginning of the resume. This structure is primarily used when you are staying in the same profession, in the same type of work, particularly in very conservative fields. It is also used in certain fields such as law and academia. It is recommended that the chronological resume always have an "Objective" or "Summary," to focus the reader.

The advantages: May appeal to older, more traditional readers and be best in very conservative fields. Makes it easier to understand what you did in what job. May help the name of the employer stand out more, if this is impressive. The disadvantage is that it is much more difficult to highlight what you do best. This format is rarely appropriate for someone making a career change.

FUNCTIONAL

The functional resume highlights your major skills and accomplishments from the very beginning. It helps the reader see clearly what you can do for them, rather than having to read through the job descriptions to find out. It helps target the resume into a new direction or field, by lifting up from all past jobs the key skills and qualifications to help prove you will be successful in this new direction or field. Actual company names and positions are in a subordinate position, with no description under each. There are many different types of formats for functional resumes. The functional resume is a must for career changers, but is very appropriate for generalists, for those with spotty or divergent careers, for those with a wide range of skills in their given profession, for students, for military officers, for homemakers returning to the job market, and for those who want to make slight shifts in their career direction.

Advantages: It will help you most in reaching for a new goal or direction. It is a very effective type of resume, and is highly recommended. The disadvantage is that it is hard for the employer to know exactly what you did in which job, which may be a problem for some conservative interviewers.

COMBINED

A combined resume includes elements of both the chronological and functional formats. It may be a shorter chronology of job descriptions preceded by a short "Skills and Accomplishments" section (or with a longer Summary including a skills list or a list of "qualifications"); or, it may be a standard functional resume with the accomplishments under headings of different jobs held.

There are obvious advantages to this combined approach: It maximizes the advantages of both kinds of resumes, avoiding potential negative effects of either type. One disadvantage is that it tends to be a longer resume. Another is that it can be repetitious: Accomplishments and skills may have to be repeated in both the "functional" section and the "chronological" job descriptions.