Just get to the point
By Jim Bright | smh.com.au | 05 December
A waffly and unfocused career objective won't get you an interview, writes Jim Bright.
James from Concord wrote to me asking for some pointers to help him apply for roles in sports journalism.
He wrote: "I could imagine that you would get thousands of these a year." Well, James is correct and, sadly, if I do not feature my response in this column, the alternatives are either engaging a professional to review your documents - people often recoil when I quote the cost of this - or they can search out good-quality publications on the topic.
At the risk of naked self-promotion, I will mention that Joanne Earl and I have written an evidence-based resume guide called Resumes That Get Shortlisted, which is published by Allen & Unwin. It costs a lot less than seeking professional advice and is a good alternative for the budget-conscious.
To be fair and balanced, Dr Ann Villiers' How to Write and Talk to Selection Criteria (fourth edition) is an excellent Australian resource, especially for those going for public service roles. I have addressed many aspects of the written application in recent weeks, so I am going to limit my response to James to the issue of the career objective.
Career objective statements are pithy declarations that appear at the beginning of a resume to orient the recruiter to the applicant's needs.
Wrong. Did I really just type that? Well, that is the common view of what the career objective is and that is a mistake.
Career objectives, in my view, are a valuable opportunity for the applicant to demonstrate they have done their homework, understand the demands and opportunities related to the role and show they are a good fit for the position being offered.
Now, that last sentence was a mouthful. It contained three ideas - homework, understanding and candidate fit. It takes some processing and understanding.
James took my breath away with his first sentence. It reads: "To utilise my skills in communication and the experience which I have already to continue to gain experience from news organisations with the aim of leading to a career in journalism covering any number of issues, with a special interest in sport."
Luckily for this breathless reader, that was the sum total of the career objective. All James's ambitions crammed into one overworked sentence. Perhaps James feels a need for brevity and has interpreted that in terms of the number of sentences instead of the number of concepts introduced, or even the number of words.
The brevity comes at the expense of clarity and, in my book, clarity is everything on an application. Secondly, the statement is focused exclusively on James's needs and wants. He alludes to experience without further elaboration. This can be corrected simply with a few additional words.
For instance, "My international experience reporting on the Olympic Games" would suffice and impress. Grammatically, I'd prefer to think experience is not "gained from news organisations" as though it were some sort of commodity, rather "gained working with news organisations".
The phrase "any number of issues" really does need reworking. Perhaps James is seeking to impress with his adaptability and willingness to work on a broad range of assignments. However, in this context and without elaboration, it impresses as either vague or, if I am looking for excuses to reject a candidate, desperate. James seems to have a lot to offer an employer.
Apparently he has graduate qualifications related to journalism and has had international sports journalism experience at a major event. Perhaps James could rework this last paragraph into a career objective that speaks of what he can contribute to an employer, which, coincidentally, is what he wants.
That is the essence of a good career objective.
Jim Bright is professor of career education and development at ACU and a partner at Bright and Associates, a career management consultancy. brightside@jimbright.com For more workplace advice, visit mycareer.com.au/advice.
First published by Smh.com.au on December 05 2009
Visit smh.com.au for the latest news updated throughout the day
