Early in my career, my resume had an objective statement, “seeking a financial-related career with a company looking for a hard-working, well-organized person with a strong math and accounting background.” That never worked out for me.
Back in the 1980s, putting an objective statement on a resume was typical. One reason why objectives were valid back then is that people didn’t have a hundred different resumes with different objectives; it was a major chore to customize a resume to a specific job. Unless you were a speedy typist on your IBM Selectric, you had one objective (maybe two) for the duration of your job search. When employers received resumes (and actually read them!), they could be fairly confident that the objective statements truly reflected the career aspirations of the applicant.
Today, the objective statement has fallen out of favor. Because resumes can be edited so easily and tailor made to the specific job, the reader is left to wonder, does this person really have a life-long mission to become a marketing specialist at a large bank that happens to have “Bank” and “America” in its name? If 100 people apply to a cost accounting position, do they all really need to have an objective statement that says, “to secure a position as a cost accountant where I can utilize my expertise in blah, blah, and blah?”
