Where to get professional resume help?

November 21, 2021 9:14 PM

Where can I get professional assistance with my resume and cover letter? My current documents are updated and decent, but I’m applying for some high level positions now, including some outside of my city, and I want my them to really stand out and make me look like I am qualified for senior level positions. Any suggestions?

For example - I just applied to a job at Amazon. What works here St Louis doesn’t feel like it’s good enough for that kind of company (and competition).

posted by kdern to Work & Money (7 answers total)

Best answer: I have an awesome contact I’ve used for this - Mac (Motivation & Achievement Concepts) who is qualified, savvy, kind, funny, and fierce as hell. I learned about her from a friend who she helped get her first 6+ figure job, and she was great for me, too. She’s a former headhunter, and has experience across a wide variety of industries. Feel free to MeMail me for more details.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 9:40 PM on November 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Resumes to Interviews.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 3:47 AM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Alison Green's long-running Ask A Manager site is the gold standard for me on resume/cover letter advice. Here's the Resumes tag, and here's the Cover Letters tag. Start with these two:

How to write a resume that doesn’t suck
How to write a great cover letter

Then enjoy hopping around Alison's very educational and highly readable site via the tags or the YOU MAY ALSO LIKE links at the bottom of each post. Even if the questions folks send her seem silly, her answers are always useful and often fascinating.
posted by mediareport at 4:55 AM on November 22, 2021 [2 favorites]

Most colleges have this service to their alumni from their career office
posted by radsqd at 7:54 AM on November 22, 2021

Best answer: I have used Resumes to Interviews several times. I thought they were great about a decade ago, but I was not super impressed when I worked with them about 4 years ago.
posted by radioamy at 9:47 AM on November 22, 2021

Best answer: I used Let’s Eat, Grandma earlier this year.

It was fine. The biggest upgrade to my resume possibly came in the couple weeks after I had placed my order but before my first draft was ready, because I had to revamp and submit my materials in a hurry for a specific opportunity.

Overall, I’m glad I used the service so I could talk to a “professional” about the changes and they could ask me detailed and pointed questions about my experiences from an outside perspective.

Is the resume I have now $400 better than the resume I could have hypothetically written in a vacuum? Possibly not. But hiring the service meant that I had deadlines, feedback, and accountability to actually make changes to my resume and cover letter. The documents are better, I’m not wringing my hands over the layout or wording, and that’s absolutely worth it.

Unless you have the money to pay more than one service and compare results, it probably doesn’t matter which one you pick, as long as the process sounds good, and the website gives you ok vibes. Although when I was searching, I checked out the different companies on LinkedIn to get an idea of how many writers they had, how long they had been with the company, and what kinds of backgrounds they had.
posted by itesser at 8:35 PM on November 22, 2021

I used to someone who is specific to my industry, and had experience as a hiring manager for that industry so she was able to give more specific advice. Since resume and job application norms are so different between different positions, I would consider trying to get some more specific advice
posted by lookoutbelow at 1:16 PM on November 23, 2021