I'm Louise Fletcher. As President of 
I'm Chandlee Bryan. As a career coach and resume writer with experience from Manhattan to Main Street, I help job seekers connect with opportunity by sharing news, trends and best practices. I'm the Managing Editor of Career Hub and run 
I have no idea who created the resume templates that come with Microsoft Word, but I know two things for sure.
- The person who created them had never been involved in hiring anyone, and
- They were designed a long time ago
I always tell people that including an 'objective' on your resume is outdated and unhelpful. Employers don't want to know your career goals - not at this stage anyway. At the resume screening stage, they want to know if you are qualified for the position and whether you seem like the kind of person who will add value.
But there's no wonder that so many people start their resume with an objective when the resume templates provided by MS Word (the word processing program most people use) include a section entitled "objective."
It's there, so you have to fill it in right?
No!
Delete it altogether and replace it with a profile that shows how you will add value.
Better yet, shut down the template and start from scratch. An MS resume template will make you look like everyone else. The people reading your resume see a LOT of resumes. They've seen this design before. Thousands of times. So the message you're sending instantly is "there's absolutely nothing special about me."
And when you add the objective statement, you're actually saying "there's absolutely nothing special about me but here's what I would like to do with my life."
Is that really what you want to say when you apply for a job?
So please scrap the Microsoft Word resume template and write a resume that focuses on showing employers your unique value proposition - how you will make their lives easier or their companies more successful.
If you'd like help, don't forget to check out my free resume writing site.
Cross-posted at The Blue Sky Resumes Blog
