How do I find a reputable pro resume writer?

March 14, 2011 5:28 PM

I'd like to hire a resume writer, but have no idea how to go about finding a reputable one.

This sounded plausible to me (Hire someone to write your resume) but there are no links or advice aside from "get a pro!"

posted by ziggly to Work & Money (4 answers total)

I have cut my own bangs before and they've turned out just fine, thankyouverymuch. In fact, I cut them once with a pocket knife looking into the side-view mirror of a Jeep while on a camping trip. When I went in for my next cut, my stylist even said they looked great. So there.

I have been to see two career placement people specifically to get advice on my resume. They are both professional, do-this-for-a-living people, and even worked for the same organization (though in different capacities). They both had very different ideas of what my resume should be, contradicting each other on a number of different points. To each of them, the other's way of doing things was "wrong."

So, I'm not an expert on this by any means, but my advice is: just find someone who doesn't piss you off. Because even among the experts there is no right way to do it.
posted by phunniemee at 5:36 PM on March 14, 2011

I am not sure that a "resume writer" can provide you with anything of value.

Resume writers will most likely not know anything about your area of expertise. They will not be able to describe your specialized experience using terms that are relevant to employers in your chosen industry. They will not edit your resume to suit particular employers. They will not be able to revise your resume to highlight parallels between your experience and the demands of the positions you seek. That's the majority of what a resume is supposed to accomplish. No matter what job-hunting mythology might say, flim-flam and stylistic flourishes will not charm employers into giving you a position.

Essentially, you are considering paying money to someone who doesn't know you and doesn't understand anything about what you do to represent the full array of your skills and experience on paper.

So, what kind of service can resume writers realistically offer? Well, they can probably format and proofread your resume. They can offer generic and contradictory style advice. They can sell you pop-psychology rationalizations about what sounds "dynamic" and "active" on the page. Unless you are an egregiously poor writer and speller and have a tremendously bad eye for layout, I doubt you'll find this sort of service to be of benefit.
posted by Nomyte at 6:04 PM on March 14, 2011 [5 favorites]

I signed up for the free resume advice here--they send an email-a-day for 10 days, with focused advice on how to improve your resume. The emails were helpful to me. It was also helpful to get them piece-by-piece rather than all at once (which I think might have been overwhelming.) Apparently you can hire them too, but I didn't do that. Just did the free 10-day email advice thing. I also looked at the samples they have, and found some of them pretty helpful.
posted by eleyna at 9:03 PM on March 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm definitely not trying to shill for them, (and their website seems to be wonky at the moment otherwise I would link to them), but I found a resume-writer on Vault.com and it was some of the best money I ever spent.

Nomyte is write that the writer won't be an expert in your field, but *will* most likely have some experience in your general area. The true value comes, not from knowing the inner workings of your widget-making jobs, but from knowing what HR managers are looking for in a resume and how to make yours look like that.

Also, and this was a biggie for me, my biggest obstacle in writing my own resume was the psychological blocks I was putting up- getting nervous and frustrated and inarticulate every time I tried to do it myself. Hiring someone made it practically stress free. That in itself was worth the money, but the resume kicked butt too.
posted by bluejayway at 10:02 AM on March 15, 2011