What the heck is a ‘Career Objective’?

Many resumes get rejected within 15 seconds of being opened because they simply do not capture the interest of the hiring manager. The ‘Career Objective’ statement is the first thing hiring managers see on a resume, and where most people go wrong is making it too WIIFM-centric (what’s in it for me), when it should be WIIFT (what’s in it for them). The key is finding the most catching, specific statement that captures your job interest, and then getting back to selling your potential – hence, what’s in it for them if they hire you.

So how the heck do you do that?

Career Objectives/Statements

Although resumes are the first impression of our professional selves, do not feel that you have to write a monotone or stiff objective. Don’t be afraid to let some personality show, often times this will actually provide the hiring manager with a ‘personal tone’ and will set your resume apart from many.

Consider some of the following points when writing your ‘career objective’ or ‘statement’:

Keep it short, but not so short that it’s meaningless
Some of the worst resumes out there often have a career objective that is more than 150 words. We live in a 140-characters-or-less era, so communicate specifically the job you want, and how you’d want an organization to benefit from your skill set.
- DO
  “A position within XYZ Enterprises, creating integrated strategies to develop and expand existing customer sales, brand/product evolution, and media endorsement”
- DON’T
  “General Manager in an established and successful business”
WIIFT (what’s in it for them)
Your resume is a sales pitch that, if successful, will get you an interview and get you hired. The best way to keep your career objective as self-less as possible is to list one key skill and explain how others have benefited from it.
- DO
  “To secure a Search Engine Optimization position where I can use my prior experience to increase site traffic and search engine placement”
- DON’T
  “Seeking a sales position with a reputable company on a long term basis who compensates well”
Be specific
A best practice is to indicate the exact position you are applying for in your career objective – however, if you are in a situation where you’re sending a resume to a hiring agency or a consulting firm, you can simply describe your one key skill + what you expect to do for a client with your skill and previous experience
- POSITION-SPECIFIC
  “Securing a Search Engine Optimization position at XYZ Enterprises…”
- AGENCY OR FIRM – NON-SPECIFIC
  “Securing a management position where I can effectively utilize my expertise in human relations and project management for greater business efficiency”
Show some personality
Skill sets are a must-have, but employers often base their decisions upon a secondary element – who is the best fitfor the team, and this usually comes down to a matter of personality/likability/fitting in/mutual interests. If you want to show a little personality in your career objective (and you can do this in your cover letter as well), consider some of the following:
- “…benefiting from my spitfire energy, management experience, and need for pursuit”
- “…organizing team activities for a cause your organization is passionate about”
- “…utilizing my creative mind and hunger for achievement to reinforce the XYZ brand image”

To read more about things you didn’t know you could put on your resume or career objective, read the article at the Daily Muse.

Stay tuned for my piece on LinkedIn – who matters, the jobs that are paying, and the 200 million competing users.

Tags: balance, careers, help, jobs, objectives, personality, skills, statements, WIIFT, writing

Making Your Mark: Rethinking Your Resume

Not sure which sections to include in your resume or how to order them? Consider some of the following points while you’re preparing your resume:

Resumes

A.k.a The ‘Experience and Knowledge Inventory’ Document

Resumes, unlike your cover letter, are a more detailed (and yet more point-form) description of where you want to go, where you’ve been, what you’ve done, and how well and long you’ve done it. This document entails a career statement (we’ll get to this in a minute), employment history, education, certifications you might hold, awards you have received, or volunteer work you’ve done. There is a great deal of debate over how all of these important tidbits are to be ordered, but generally speaking you’ll want to order any of your work history or education in chronological order (listing the most recent first, and then going backwards). People get really caught up in making their resumes ‘really pretty’ – you’ll want to read a little bit about the company first, get to know their culture or maybe read up on their blog to see what their overall tone is and evaluate how appropriate your design is based on your findings. For instance, an advertising or marketing firm might appreciate an eye-catching resume more than an engineering firm might.

Although an aesthetically pleasing resume will catch eyes, it won’t get you the job (or even the interview) without context-rich and buzzword-less sections – what I mean by context-rich is ensuring you’re modifying or highlighting aspects (but not lying about) of your previous roles and tasks to fit the keywords of the job posting and positioning yourself correctly for the job.

Generally speaking, resumes that are longer than two pages are discarded. Keep it to two pages, be succinct, unambiguous, and as we discussed in my previous post ‘Making Your Mark in 250 Words‘, do not use large, convoluted words to seem more sophisticated, as this often leaves the opposite impression.
Typically, job seekers will use a reverse chronological format for their resume, which means that they will list their most recent jobs first, followed with previous positions. If you are a recent grad and lack experience, it would be wise to try out a functional format, where you summarize your skills, education, and then list your work history. Images for these formats can be found lower in this post.
Incorporate terminology from the job ad to ensure your resume does not get filtered out. Many companies use resume-filtering software that scans for keywords and picks out the ones that closely match the desired skills and experience.
To further the previous point, you’ll want to describe relevant experiences under each position you list, and explain the ways in which you might have improved productivity, increased awareness, or reduced costs in the past. Certainly, listing only the most relevant tasks you completed in the role is important, too. Don’t just make it into an exhaustive list, but rather a summary of what you accomplished.
Always make sure you have a plain-text version of your resume available so that it is accessible on any computer system.
If you’re creating your resume in Microsoft Publisher (more options for formatting and making the document more aesthetically pleasing), you’ll want to consider a couple of things:
1. Most application portals do not accept .pub files, so you’ll want to save it as a PDF.
2. Alternatively, some portals do not accept PDF files, so if you’re wanting to keep your formatting, you’ll need to group all of the objects and copy/paste it into a Word document. Be sure you always go over the Word version to see if the formatting got moved around in the saving process.
Typically, the sections that will appear in a resume are as follows:
Career Statement/Objective, Education, Employment History, Specific Skills/Tools, Languages (if applicable), Volunteer Experience (if applicable).
You only need to reference back to the last five years of your employment history (however, you can highlight something much further back in your cover letter if it is crucial to your experience).

Reverse Chronological Format

Below is an image of a sample reverse chronological format resume.

Functional Format

Below is an image of a sample functional format resume.

Stay tuned for my next post on career statements/objectives, and what the heck they are.

Tags: applicants, applications, candidates, jobs, professional, resumes

Making Your Mark: 250 Words

Trying to write that compelling cover letter to land an awesome job? Not sure how to structure your cover letter or what some of the faux-pas are that may deter employers? Consider a few of the points below as you are seeking employment this summer:

Cover Letters

A.k.a The ‘This is why I’m applying and this is why I’m qualified’ Document

Cover letters, unlike your resume, are written in full sentences and paragraphs, and should not be any longer than one page. The key is to include the most pertinent information from your resume that the hiring manager for the position would be looking for. Hiring managers sift through hundreds of cover letters and resumes in hopes of finding the perfect candidate, so you’ll need to capture their attention in that 40 seconds or so it takes them to read this one page. In doing so, be sure you aren’t disguising some of your skills or talents with some of these buzz words:

‘Familiar with…’ , ‘knowledge of…’
Since you want to distinguish yourself amongst hundreds of applicants, be as specific as you can when you’re describing your experience or knowledge. For instance, ‘thorough knowledge of…’ or ‘ten years of experience directly tied to…’ might help you better articulate where you’re coming from and what you can offer. Remember – if you’re about to use a word that obviously covers up for a lack of experience or knowledge in a certain area, omit it altogether.
‘Utilize’
Scratch this one off – when was the last time you actually used this word in a conversation? When applicants use words like this, employers are left with the impression that they don’t know how to communicate effectively and in a straightforward manner, instead of thinking the applicant is sophisticated or accomplished. ‘Use’ is perfectly, just get to the point.
‘Responsibilities include’
More than likely, the hiring manager will have a good idea of the kinds of duties you held in a previous role and won’t need a breakdown. Instead, explain how you helped your previous employer re-evaluate a certain strategy that helped decrease costs and increase efficiencies.

Now that we’ve gone through a few of the buzz words that you should be avoiding, try taking a stab at structuring your cover letter:

For more information on cover letter strategies and buzz words, read Cover Letter Power Words, or Avoid Buzzwords.

Stay tuned for help on resumes later on this week.

Tags: applicants, application, buzz words, candidates, cover letters, employment, help, jobs, structure

My Best Mistake: Taking All the Wrong Post-Secondary Programs

I would like to use the example of Post-It Notes to preface my story. A scientist at 3M Innovations came out with what was supposed to be a super-adhesive glue that caused minimal damage. What it ended up becoming was an exhaustive saga and a glue that was bad, in fact it was really bad. Didn’t stick to anything, what could you ever do with such a thing? This mistake turned into a $50 billion a year revenue and is used as a reminder or ‘mental nudge’ tool that sits on many desks across the world. A swell mistake indeed!

So no, your eyes didn’t play a trick on you, I mean it – taking all the wrong post-secondary programs was my best mistake. Although some might not consider this a ‘mistake’, but rather a life experience that is more common with today’s twenty-somethings.

I was a graduate after the double-cohort in Ontario, meaning students were graduating a year earlier than once before and that ‘OAC’ or ‘Grade 13′ became obsolete. I wasn’t a kid with a longstanding career option already picked out since childhood, like being a doctor or a teacher – I liked a variety of different subject matter.

The first program I ever took was Marketing, which is what I knew I would end up doing, but I didn’t want to do sales. I wanted to be involved behind the scenes of marketing campaigns, so I wanted to try other things. I then went on to a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English because that’s what I was supposed to do. Finished that and then went into a multidisciplinary Political Science and Human Rights program – which actually drew a deeper passion out of me than I would have initially expected, but the career path was too fuzzy there. The last program I graduated from was a Technical Writing certification, and I truly stumbled upon it by accident, but it gave me the breadth and variety in a career that I was looking for all along.

The beauty in taking all the wrong courses, at least for me, was that I actually enjoyed writing, and researching, and doing essays (don’t all cringe at once), my passion was just being masked by various subject matter that I only had a surface-level interest for. By the time I had finished the Human Rights program and was facing a serious re-evaluation of where I was going, I narrowed my requirements down to three things: I needed to work with people, I needed to be able to write and research, but I didn’t want to be a salesperson.

So I started looking for what kinds of programs were offered that were writing and business-heavy, and I stumbled upon Technical Writing – which is very much an outdated umbrella term for a lot of different niches, but that’s what drew me. You can branch out and do so many different things coming out of the Technical Writing program – the fact that I don’t have a previous IT or engineering background or couldn’t tell you the first thing about how servers operate is a moot point, but I can adapt to information and visualize its function; I’m an advocate for information, I know what to do with it.

Although the path you’re traveling down may seem like one that repeatedly serves into itself and is missing direction, you may actually be making the best mistake by learning something you don’t care to end up in. Opportunities in this life are endless, particularly with the workforce revolution in full swing.

Trust your struggle, be open-minded, and always remember that mistakes aren’t always bad, in fact they rarely are because they signal the coming of something tried for and great.

Tags: 3M Innovations, career, discovery, English, Human Rights, marketing, mistakes, positive, Post-It Notes, post-secondary, professional, programs, psychology, Stacey Vincent, technical writing, undergraduate

Things I Carry: Ginseng and a Backbone

In light of the Things I Carry feature on LinkedIn, I thought I’d add my own two cents to the conversation. Whether I’m working from home or I’m mid-grind at the office, there are some essentials that help me keep my focus throughout the day.

My biggest essential for focus is actually headphones (I’m sure not every work environment permits this, but I’m lucky enough to be in a space that encourages you to work how you work best). With all the bustling people around you in an office environment, sometimes you just need to zone out, plug in, and go at it – especially as a writer.

Korean Red Ginseng is another element of focus for me – whether it be in tablet or tea form. For tea, I usually buy it from the Tea Shoppe in the Byward Market (downtown Ottawa), or I’ll buy the tablet form from any pharmacy off the shelf. Known for its amino acids, essential oils, and vitamins, it boosts my mental efficiency and relieves any fatigue. One a day, on top of other vitamins I’ve incorporated into my diet, has been a true gem in my daily routine.

Let’s be real for a second – it’s a dog-eat-dog world. I was always raised to know my place, speak up when I need to and stand up for myself. As I’m sure many people have experienced in the working world, it isn’t always as professional and honest as you might’ve hoped it would be when you started, and it’s not always as easy as someone saying “stand up for yourself”. Know when it’s appropriate to speak your mind and when you should take a backseat (trust your gut, it’ll never wrong you), but also know when to stand up for what’s right or for something you believe in – as a very stoic character in my life has told me, your strong character will be the only thing that gets you through. Know your place, but don’t let anybody walk on you.

Last but not least – I’ll bring my iPhone and sometimes my iPad with me for all the same reasons everyone else does. Checking e-mail (although I’ve made a commitment to myself to not check work e-mail after business hours), tweeting the latest article I’ve found or content I’ve created, or browsing Pinterest for some brainstorming. From time to time, it’s good to disconnect for 5 minutes and peruse new ideas, recipes, or DIY projects to keep a productive flow throughout your day.

Tags: Carry, LinkedIn-inspired, must-haves, Stacey, Things