The Quick Answer
Use a summary if you have any relevant work experience. Use an objective only if you're a recent graduate with no experience or making a dramatic career change where your experience doesn't speak for itself.
In 2026, the professional summary has almost entirely replaced the objective statement. Here's why and when each still makes sense.
What's the Difference?
Resume Objective: Tells the employer what YOU want. "Seeking a position in marketing where I can grow my skills."
Resume Summary: Tells the employer what YOU OFFER. "Marketing professional with 5 years of experience driving 3x growth in organic traffic."
See the difference? The objective is self-focused. The summary is value-focused. Employers care about what you bring to the table.
Why Objectives Are (Mostly) Dead
- They waste prime resume real estate on YOUR wants, not THEIR needs
- They often sound generic: "Seeking a challenging position that utilizes my skills" — this could be anyone
- Recruiters already know your objective: you want the job you're applying to
- They don't differentiate you from other candidates
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There are three specific situations where an objective makes sense:
1. Career Changers
When your experience is in a completely different field, an objective explains WHY you're applying and bridges the gap.
"Former high school teacher transitioning to corporate instructional design. Bringing 8 years of curriculum development, assessment design, and engaging presentation skills to create effective training programs for enterprise teams."
2. New Graduates With No Experience
When you don't have professional experience to summarize, an objective states your direction and potential.
"Recent finance graduate from NYU Stern seeking an analyst position in investment banking. Strong foundation in financial modeling, valuation, and Excel, with internship experience at a boutique advisory firm."
3. Re-entering the Workforce
After a significant career gap, an objective can address the gap directly.
"Experienced project manager returning to the workforce after a 3-year caregiving sabbatical. Previously delivered $10M+ in IT projects at Deloitte. PMP certified, seeking to apply proven methodologies in a senior PM role."
How to Write a Great Summary
Use the formula: [Title] + [Experience] + [Key Skill/Expertise] + [Top Achievement]
"Senior data engineer with 8 years of experience building scalable data pipelines for Fortune 500 companies. Expert in Spark, Airflow, and cloud-native architectures. Designed a real-time analytics platform processing 500M+ events daily, reducing data latency from 4 hours to under 5 minutes."
Examples Side by Side
❌ Weak Objective
"Seeking a marketing position where I can utilize my skills and grow professionally."
✅ Strong Summary
"Growth marketer with 4 years of experience in B2B SaaS. Scaled a startup's blog from 0 to 50K monthly visitors. Reduced CAC by 35% through automated email sequences converting 12% of trial users to paid."
❌ Weak Objective
"To obtain a software engineering position at a leading technology company."
✅ Strong Summary
"Full-stack engineer with 5 years shipping production code at scale. Built the payment processing system handling $200M in annual transactions. Expert in TypeScript, React, Node.js, and PostgreSQL."
The Bottom Line
If you're debating between the two, go with a summary. It's the modern standard, it communicates more value, and it helps you stand out in those critical first 7 seconds of a recruiter's scan.