46. Why I hate resume objectives Pop Your Career with Bec McFarland

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46. Why I hate resume objectives- Transcript

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[00:00:52] Hi, there I'm Bec McFarland the host of the Pop Your Career [00:01:00]Podcast. As a career coach, I'm most passionate about helping my clients to discover their own personal flavour of career fulfillment. In this podcast, we are going to be exploring ways that you too can feel more fulfilled by your work. So strap yourself in, get ready for the ride. The tips around here are fast and in abundance.

[00:01:21] Hello. Hello. It's Bec McFarland here, helping you do better and be better. And today I am talking to you about one of my pet hates when it comes to resumes, and that is the objective section. Pretty weird thing to have as a pet hate or something that rubs you out the wrong way, but that's okay. As someone who has read thousands of resumes throughout my career, I feel like I am in the perfect place to have a really strong opinion on this.

[00:01:56] So why do I hate the resume objective? Well, [00:02:00] because most time it's rubbish. Most of the time people are really clutching at straws and scraping the bottom of the barrel to get something to put in this resume objective section and most of the time it tends to be a bit of an embellishment or a little bit of fluff.

[00:02:21] You know, like my objective is to secure a role in the Australian public sector where I'm able to contribute to the betterment of the Australian people. Wah wah wah. It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. It just comes across as being so fake and brown nosing. In my opinion, most people's objective is the same thing, right? We're all trying to get the job. My objective is to get this damn job that I'm putting in so much effort to apply for. [00:03:00]That is one of the reasons that I absolutely hate it. I just think it's so fluffy and just rubbish and garbage.

[00:03:08] But the other reason that I really hate resume objectives is that I feel like the people who do need them don't use them very well. So who are the people who need a resume objective? Well, the only people that I would suggest should include a resume objective are people who are undergoing some kind of transformation. So this could be, for example, if you are making a career change. It could be that perhaps you've had a bit of time off work and now you are returning to the workforce.

[00:03:41] It could be that perhaps you are moving, maybe you're moving interstate or overseas. This is an opportunity for you to tell a little bit more about your story, to give a bit more of an insight into your personality, to tell them why you are applying for this job. Right?

[00:03:57] We all know we've spoken about unconscious [00:04:00] bias before. That is episode 27, if you wanna check it out. We also know that employers are going to put two and two together and they're gonna end up with five. So they may see that you've had a gap in your career and make that mean something that it doesn't. Right? You can definitely use the objective section in your resume to give more insight and context, and when you do this well, it can really, really work in your favour.

[00:04:28] The thing is this kind of information, you could actually include it in