What do I put on a résumé instead of an objective?

What to put there instead

A short summary of evidence, or nothing at all. Two or three lines naming what you have done, at what scale, and the kind of work you are moving toward. If you cannot fill it with specifics, leave it out entirely and let the first role do the work; white space costs you nothing and a generic paragraph costs you the top of the page.

When the usual advice is wrong

Keep something objective-shaped when the reader genuinely cannot infer the target: a deliberate career change, a return after a long gap, or relocating to a city your history does not show. In those three cases the top of the page is the right place to answer the question the reader would otherwise spend the whole document forming. Write it as a statement of direction with a reason, not as a wish.

A worked example

The second version answers what you have done, how big it was, and where you are heading, in the space the first spent on a wish any applicant could have written.

Common questions

What do I put on a résumé instead of an objective?

Replace it with two lines that say what you have done, not what you want. A short summary of evidence, or nothing at all. Two or three lines naming what you have done, at what scale, and the kind of work you are moving toward. If you cannot fill it with specifics, leave it out entirely and let the first role do the work; white space costs you nothing and a generic paragraph costs you the top of the page.

Why does "an objective statement" weaken a résumé?

An objective tells the employer what you are looking for, at the top of a document they are reading to find out what you can do. It spends the most valuable space on the page, the part everyone reads, on the one piece of information the reader already assumes, because you applied. The convention dates from when résumés were posted speculatively and a company genuinely could not tell which job you meant. An application to a named posting answers that before the reader reaches your name.

When is it right to keep it?

Keep something objective-shaped when the reader genuinely cannot infer the target: a deliberate career change, a return after a long gap, or relocating to a city your history does not show. In those three cases the top of the page is the right place to answer the question the reader would otherwise spend the whole document forming. Write it as a statement of direction with a reason, not as a wish.

Where this is corroborated

These career services publish guidance on this section. Each was read and checked to actually address it. They establish that the question is taken seriously; the argument above is ours.

• Yale UniversityRésumé advice and samples, Yale Law School Career DevelopmentLaw school guidance; legal hiring has conventions of its own.