Skip to main content

The Objective Statement – Why I Don’t Like It. Use a Biosketch Summary Instead. (See www.SueMentors.blogspot.com)

As you know, if you’ve been reading my blog, I get resumes frequently. I have watched styles of resumes change - and I have even changed how I do my resume, the biggest change being that I now include a summary of my experience and skills at the top of the first page.

 

Many resumes, especially from younger professionals, now come with an objective statement. It tells me much of what they may also include in their cover letter (although I realized a few months ago that these are no longer coming to me now that SSS’ HR department uses an online application system). The objective statement tells me what they want to do in their career.

 

But oftentimes, these seem superfluous to me, at their best, and occasionally arrogant, at their worst.

 

When I review your CV, I assume you’re applying for a job with me or contacting me because you want a job and/or advice about work in research, evaluation, or public health.

 

What I need and what I look for is a summary of you. I try to glean that from your current or most recent job. I also skim over your educational training, your professional affiliations and organizations, and your publications, conference abstracts, and white papers and reports to build a picture in my mind of who you are professionally and how you’ve gathered experiences and skills.

 

So if you can provide that, it’s not only helpful to me – it gives me a head start on getting to know you. It tells me how you see yourself and how you capture the essence of you into a brief paragraph. This is also good practice for you to be able to describe yourself and your best qualities quickly, something you should be able to do when you are interviewed or meet someone and have a networking opportunity.

 

And this summary has the advantage of being something I can quickly copy and paste into an email for sharing your CV with colleagues. It makes my networking go faster and may bring you an opportunity you may not have had.

 

So, I believe you should have a summary of your skills and experience at the top of your CV. But don’t feel you have to take my advice about what to include in your CV. You should make your own decision about this. Toni Bowers at Tech Republic discusses the objective statement here so feel free to follow her advice if you prefer to go in that direction: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=1786&tag=nl.e101

 

Whichever way you go, just make sure your CV's first page shows you in your best light.

Posted via email from suegriffey's posterous

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mentor: Barbara Rawlins, Monitoring and Evaluation Team Leader, Maternal and Child Survival Program

Another feature of this blog is bringing you advice and perspectives from people who mentor, by answering 3 questions.
Here are Barbara Rawlins’ responses:
What are mentees looking for? · Career guidance · Technical advice · Moral support · Advice on how to negotiate politically-sensitive or controversial situation
What 1 piece of advice do you give every mentee you work with? Figure out what they want to do (in the long term) and what steps they can take to get there
Why are you interested in mentoring? To support younger colleagues, especially women, to help attain their career goals
6 comments
Read more

Guidance on Mentoring: What is Mentoring?

This brief guide focuses on defining different aspects of mentoring, whether for an individual or for a team, and includes selected reference resources. It is critical that the mentee and mentor both approach their interaction with the same understanding of the nature and scope of the advising that will be offered. This brief guide can serve as a reference for both parties in arriving at that mutual understanding.
Before delving into mentoring, it’s important to be aware that sometimes the terms “mentoring” and “coaching” are used interchangeably despite important differences between them. There are many resources on mentoring and coaching – and almost as many different definitions for each as well as the similarities and overlap between the two (such as shown in the articles on coaching in the resource list below).Also, most people agree that mentoring is NOT training although a mentor or coach may recommend that a mentee obtain additional training.
What is the nature of the mentoring…
2 comments
Read more

Virtual Conference Attendance Worked: I was Amazed at How Much I Learned!

I suddenly found myself able to attend the American Evaluation Association (AEA) annual conference virtually because I had a relatively open schedule during the conference days of Oct. 31-November 3, 2018 (Wednesday afternoon-Saturday afternoon). I didn’t know until close to the conference time that AEA would have virtual access – and not just to the Opening Plenary.
Thanks, AEA, for the free and excellent streaming access to Presidential Strand sessions!
So I began attending the virtual sessions. And I was deliberate and diligent in engaging with the conference Twitter hashtag #Eval18 (and other variations).
By the 2nd day afternoon, I realized what a full picture I was getting of the conference even though I wasn’t there. Attending tweeters were keeping us updated on all aspects of the conference. And I found myself reading threads and going back to the program abstracts to learn more about sessions that weren’t streamed but whose content impressed an attendee enough to write a tweet.
A…
3 comments
Read more