How good are you at making decisions? Are you ever given the responsibility of choosing a new restaurant to visit on the weekend with family or friends? Their potential satisfaction and enjoyment of the night is riding on your decision, and the more you reconsider and second-guess, the more agonising it can get. Who likes colourful places and who likes quiet? Has your choice of venue received any press lately - good or bad? And what about their signature dishes - what do they do really well that you can count on if you decide to go with them?
Imagine there is one joint which has advertised in Yellow, eatability and their own website as a bit of an all-rounder. They do lunch and dinner really well, and if you choose to eat there, they'll do their very best to give you a first class meal which includes all the main food groups. They are open to anyone who wants to dine there, and they really want to give them great food as well. Really really.
Does anyone else think that this place will be sadly frustrated with the amount of foot traffic? Despite their assurances of gastronomic euphoria, there's just not enough detail there, especially when there are so many other restaurants with important information to digest. There's no doubt that they could be astounding in their talent to provide the ultimate dining experience, but it simply has not been expressed sufficiently to the first time reader.
So, enough of the analogy. This one is about your Career Objective. Writers of the Resume must be aware that the Career Objective is the first item to be looked at when your email attachment is opened, and usually the first to be ignored if it looks like rubbish. The amount of applications we see which have something to this effect is genuinely soul-destroying:
"I would like to find a position which uses my range of skills and experience, and make a important and productive contribution to my employer company in a fulfilling and satisfying way."
It's hard to even write that. It might be an example of crazy vagueness to the extreme, but if you are guilty of making your Objective sound as though you will only be pleased with your job when your boss is pleased, that's a problem.
Researching restaurant options, you will note that no venue is asking for your approval or just begging to be given a chance. This is despite the fact that they can only exist with the continued patronage of people like you. Confidence is the key to attraction - if you get the impression that there are thousands of people keen on that restaurant, then your faith in them will be strong.
You need to write your Career Objective as though the masses are begging for your autograph, then you are establishing yourself as a object of desire. Break it down into three parts: past, present and future. A couple of details on your origins, what you do best now, and what the future holds for you. Your employer doesn't want to feel responsible for your happiness just by opening your resume - you're the best and they would be lucky to have you.
New restaurants and new staff are both very exciting and stressful choices, but they are out there for the rest of us to discover. Isn't it time everyone woke up to a new option for their company?
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