For the past 5 years, I have been running Resume Rescue and have helped 180+ people around the world. I’ve seen many resumes with a Professional Summary or Objective section at the top and will be sharing my thoughts on whether you should have one or not.
No, you do not need an About Me or Objective section on your resume.
Clearly, the goal with any resume is to get the job. Simple as that.
IMO, having a paragraph talking about yourself and your interest in the job is unnecessary fluff. You can save the background info for your LinkedIn profile instead.
I’ve also mentioned that hiring managers and recruiters only look at your resume for 7 seconds on average, so why would you want them to waste their time reading something that is obvious?
Replace the Professional Summary or Objective section with a Key Skills section
I advise all of my peeps to have a Key Skills section instead with 3-5 bullet points highlighting your most impressive and relevant achievements and experiences. This cuts to the chase and summarizes why you are a valuable candidate from the get-go. Once you capture the hiring manager’s attention with your Key Skills section, they should be more willing to take an extra minute and read the rest of your resume.
TLDR: Replace your Professional Summary/Objective section with a Key Skills section with bullet points. Visit Resume Rescue if you need help with this.
More job hunting help and resources 👇🏼
- Visit Resume Rescue for tips and to submit your own resume for review
- Read testimonials to see what people have said about their Resume Rescue experiences
- Follow my Who’s Hiring LinkedIn page to see job alerts shared directly from recruiters and hiring managers
- Subscribe to my monthly newsletter for career learnings and free resume templates
- Book a career chat if you want to talk 1on1
- Connect with me on LinkedIn (please personalize your note as I have 1.5K+ connection requests)
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