Your objective – make it count
When writing a resume, or in the case of online job marketplaces such as oDesk your profile, your objective should be a brief statement of what you can do, not what you want. Often, you'll see "stock" resumes with objectives stating something along the lines of:
To obtain a position where I can maximize my management skills, quality assurance, program development, and training experience.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and tell you to forget what you've read about resume writing from the books.
In the world of freelancing, your potential client doesn't care about this – they want to know what you can do for them, and whether you can do it cheaper and/or better than the next guy.
Why should I hire you?
Let your objective reflect why you are the best candidate for the job in one or two paragraphs. Explain what you do, how long you've been doing it, and how well you can do it.
If you're extremely quick, say so. If you have been working in your field for 10 years, explain how it gives you that much more experience than the guy who's been doing this for only three. If you're meticulous…well, if you're meticulous, you should have already written that in your objective.
Center your objective around your buyer instead of yourself. Once you do this, you'll be well on your way to impressing your buyer and snagging the job from the people who didn't.
Thanks a lot! I guess if we all get away from the "textbook" answer in the real world we might end up better off. There are so many people who try to tell you how to write a resume, but not as many who will actually show you an example of one that they would use to hire a person from.
I'd like to put examples up, but at the same time, I'm wary of putting up a sample objective simply because I don't want to see it copied and pasted into profiles/resumes (that would defeat the purpose of this post). But it really isn't that difficult, just brag about yourself without sounding too arrogant.
When it comes to the freelance job boards, the objective is more of an introduction than anything else – it (along with your cover letter) will be among the first things a buyer sees when you apply, so you have to put the important stuff in there!
If you want an example, you can see my odesk profile (link in sidebar). My overview is a bit long for my tastes, but I really can't bring myself to thin it out any more. I had a crappy objective when I first started out, and after a few days, I decided to completely rewrite it. It (along with my cover letter and portfolio) helped me get my first assignment within a week.