Optimizing Your Resume Objective
A resume objective usually forms the opening paragraph of your resume, and is thus extremely important in making a first impression. Whether from the angle of an actual reader of the resume or for electronic search functions, the first paragraph of any document has great relevance and must be focused and accurate.

Regretfully, most traditional resumes have vague objectives that fail either to act as a proper objective statement or as a relevant first paragraph of a document. To optimize and create a successful resume objective, we need to analyze the functions of the paragraph containing the resume objective and see to it that the paragraph properly fulfills its duties.

Overall functions of the resume objective

The functions of the resume objective paragraph working also as the first paragraph of your resume are as follows:

• Describing your long term and short term career goals in a succinct manner
• Carrying the proper keywords with required density and positioning to enhance electronic search friendliness
• Showing the integrity between your personal career goals and the job position applied for
• Indicating that the direction of your career goals match the direction of promotional progress from the job position applied for
• Demonstrating employability and passing mention of flexibility as well as transferrable skills
• Providing cues from which the information presented in the rest of the resume can be reasonably inferred
• Engaging the interest of the reader sufficiently to compel him or her to consider the rest of the resume and the viability of the candidate for the job applied for

If you carefully go through the functions listed above, you would immediately recognize that most resume objectives succeed only in fulfilling the first function, and fail with regard to the rest. The reason is that the resume objective, by its very name, indicates existence of only the first function, and pinning that ''resume objective'' label to the first paragraph of your resume severely handicaps your perception of the requirements of that paragraph.

Creating a proper resume objective

Once you understand the real functions that the first paragraph of your resume needs to fulfill, doing it becomes easy. Keywords would obviously include your qualifications, job position, and occupational title among others. With boatloads of resumes in front of every employer and submission of resumes through digital files having become the norm, electronic searches have also become regular. The first and most obvious screening search would be by qualifications, then by length of work experience, and then by location. It is important that your first paragraph include that information whether for an electronic search or for an actual reader.

Take a look at the following sentences for a job in Los Angeles, and the difference would become clear from the angle of an employer:

''3d artist experienced in computer modeling and animation seeks suitable position.''

''Bachelor in Computer Graphics with two years work-experience in 3d modeling and animation, seeking a job in and around Los Angeles.''

Does not matter whether you personally reside in Los Angeles or not. Location is an important search parameter, and if the employer prefers Los Angeles candidates and you do not live there, then missing to mention Los Angeles in your resume and your first sentence can kill your chances on the first screening search. And this will happen even if you were ready for relocation. However, mentioning the location of the employer in your resume ensures that you are considered even if you don't reside in that location. This is just a little example on how to focus your resume objective, and you can infer how to do the rest in a similar manner.

Besides neglecting keywords, candidates regularly fail to underline the integrity between personal career goals and the job position. Usually, people spend time and effort to create a generalized statement of objectives and send it out without any change for every possible job position. This is inappropriate. Suppose the mentioned job is for a junior artist or trainee artist, then it would be more appropriate to change the mentioned sentence like this:

''Bachelor in Computer Graphics with two years work-experience in 3d modeling and animation, seeking a job as a trainee, or with greater learning opportunities, in and around Los Angeles.''

Here we correlate the objective of ''seeking a job'' with the job position of a ''trainee'' and make the resume objective more targeted and focused.

This article does not have the scope to elaborate on how to fulfill every function required by the resume objective paragraph. While the requirements would generally remain the same, the strategy of execution would differ from case to case and it is for you to decide how to get the job done. However, if you take the time to thoroughly understand the requirements of the resume objective paragraph and apply your mind to the task, you will create a more targeted resume each time you apply for a job.