This critical step is too often overlooked. You must identify your objectives and your target audiences. What do you aim to achieve with your resume? Answer that question, and you will define your goals. You must also define, as best you can, who will read your resume. Your reviewers belong to the field. They use particular words, phrases, and other field-focused terminology when they talk about their work. By using the proper language, you project the sense that you can do the job.

Your resume should clearly state your career objectives, but not necessarily with a designated career objective line. Instead, the content of your resume should convey the career objective. Too often old-fashioned career objectives were pure fluff. They were vague or did little to enhance the job seeker's qualifications or goals. Look through the samples in this book. When a sample resume includes a career objective line it is very targeted, meaning it clearly focuses on a specific field and, within that field, on a certain job function.