Professional Resume Writer Advice Needed...

8 Comments

1. Stephanie Mansueto, Corporate Recruiter & Job Hunting CoachSeptember 17,2021 at 8:54PM UTC

   I'm sorry you're not happy with your resume after paying a professional to revise it.

   I'm a professional resume writer and career coach, but my resume rewrite is part of my coaching program. It's worth the money to work with a resume writer that has a background in recruitment, HR, professional development, or career services AND will work with you one-on-one, as in, they'll chat with you over the phone about what types of jobs you're applying to, are you embarking on a career change, and will listen to you talk about your experience and will ask you detailed follow-up questions to tease about important pieces of quantifiable information and your key professional successes to be featured in your resume. Some resume writers that are hired at these bigger or established companies have no experience in business writing which is absurd. It's a learned skill so you should hire someone that has experience with that type of writing.

   Some writers will write your resume from scratch and some will make light or heavy edits depending on your needs and the current state of your resume. I don't write resumes from scratch because it's too time consuming and not worth it for the money, but I'll do major edits and re-writes to at least a base draft. I personally think if you're going to spend $200-$300 on a resume rewrite you should go with a career coach or a small or mid-size resume writing service that will pair you with an actual writer who will talk to you over the phone. I find the big ones that use automated systems and non-professional experienced writers to be a waste of money for a majority of people.

   I briefly did some part-time work with a popular resume writing company that used AI to manage communication between the client and the resume writer and it was awful. They would sometimes send me resumes that were perfectly fine or actually quite good, but the client thought their resume was the problem when in fact they were embarking on a career change and their resume wasn't the problem. Their networking or job search strategy was way off, however, these resume writing services will happily take your money even though they can't really help you.

   Maybe have a co-worker, friend, or family member that you trust with career advice take a look and see what they think before paying for another service. If you do go with another service, ask more details about the background of the writer and set clear expectations as to what you want and expect.

2. Barb HansenSeptember 18,2021 at 12:00AM UTC

   I hired a resume writer about six years ago for the first time in 20 years of my business career.

   I was passively looking for a new job. I was applying for the right jobs, but I wasn't getting any responses, so I figured that my resume wasn't working for me. I found a resume writer who specialized in career changes and more senior-level candidates.

   We had a 30-minute zoom conversation before she worked on my resume. We had a 2nd zoom call when she sent the draft. She wrote an entirely new resume, so much so that I didn't recognize the person she wrote about, and I mean that in a good way. My new resume now looked like the person that I was (at work).

   My husband had his resume reworked a year previously, and all that resume writer did was beef up his keywords and reformat.

   He spent under $100, and I spent around $300 for our new resumes.

3. NataliaSeptember 18,2021 at 12:05AM UTC

   Hi,
   Sorry for your bad experience ? with this. I actually do offer resume services. You can see more of my background, testimonials & even a sample of my work on my website at www.visionary-catalyst.com
   I also offer a 15 minute discovery call to understand your situation and where & what you need help with and to make sure it's a good fit for both of us ? if you are interested just send me an email at nataliagutz@gmail.com or you can fill out the form on my site.

4. Joan Williams, Senior Talent Acquisition SpecialistSeptember 18,2021 at 2:39AM UTC

   Having a "professional" resume writer is not the end all and be all.

   With over 20 plus years high level recruiting experience, I cannot tell you how many times I've said "I really like your experience but we're going to need to fix this resume" only to be told "I just paid to have it professionally re-written.

5. LisaSeptember 18,2021 at 12:29PM UTC

   The problem with having your resume re-written by a professional is that they are professional writers but that they know usually nothing about your industry.
   I had to rewrite the rewrite so that the content better reflected my actual abilities and scope of work.
   That said, I very much like the way my updated resume looks.

6. NataliaSeptember 18,2021 at 6:32PM UTC

   The reality is you have to have something for them to work off of because no one knows better what you did & achieved in your previous roles & career & what you specialize in. Ultimately, the person should work with you to not only help you with your current resume but also so you can learn how to do it so when you need to update it again you have a good sense of how to do it and then don't have to pay for a service again.

7. AnonymousSeptember 19,2021 at 5:16PM UTC

   i hired a company and they had me fill out lots of worksheets (job duties, hard/soft skills, volunteer gigs, etc) and then they wrote my docs. I was quite happy althought I found the cover letter very aggressive--it screams 'written by a 20-something white man' to me. But i've been using it and getting somehwere with it. They didnt ask for my existing resume at all. I'm guessing that there's no guarantee of happiness offer with this company? Can you contact the CEO?

8. AnonymousSeptember 20,2021 at 7:25PM UTC

   I've had mine re-written three times in the past year. The first two were by professional recruiters that a trusted friend recommended; while I thought they were "ok", I didn't love the end result. In the course of posting here, I found another, and she did a great job. I think the biggest difference is that my FGB writer kind of interviewed me about my resume, as well as accepted supporting information I was able to share (positive job reviews, writing samples, recommendation letters, etc) - and she incorporated a lot of that positivity into my new and improved resume. I'm very happy with it.