OBJECTIVE STATEMENT
Here is your chance to tell me that you are a decisive, imaginative person who knows where your careeer is headed. The following objective statements are losers:
A position combining software, hardware, and systems design, development, and support.
Seeking a challenging position as a software engineer developing system or application software in a UNIX/C environment.
The first is terrible -- this person just wants a job, doesn't matter what kind or where. The second is not much better, except that the scope has been limited to UNIX and C. The following is better:
To find challenging work in product oriented research where I can leverage my broad hardware and software skills in revolutionary ways.
This person has obviously thought about what kind of job he or she wants. It should be in product research (not development) and it should be state-of-the-art research. But, it hasn't focused on what area, for example Project Management software or PC-based statistical packages.
I realize that it is hard to come up with a good objective statement in a general forum like Usenet. It is much easier when you are targeting a resume for a specific job opening. Still, you are going to face this dilemma many times over. Here is an example of a good objective statement:
I desire to work for a leading-edge company designing state-of-the-art user interfaces for graphics workstations. The position should lead to software product management and should offer possibility of learning software marketing.
This will get me to read on, because you have shown thought about where your career is going and that you are interested in a broad range of topics and desire to take on new challenges. Yet, at the same time, notice that this objective statement is still very general -- it could be more specific (e.g., UNIX-based workstations, X-Windows, SunView etc).