WHEN IT COMES to writing a powerful resume, it's necessary to take full advantage of whatever written communication skills you have, whether they're based on natural ability or the result of years of studying and hard work. Unfortunately, not everyone has mastered the ability to communicate well in writing. If you fall into this category, one of the first things you should do in order to enhance your overall skill set and make yourself more marketable in the corporate world is find ways to improve your business-writing abilities. This can be done by taking classes, participating in home-study courses, or reading books and writing and rewriting. In the immediate future, however, you might consider hiring a professional resume writer to assist in creating the best possible resume on your behalf.
Although you may be totally qualified for the job for which you're about to apply, unless you have the ability to communicate your knowledge, skills, and experience in writing, your chances of being overlooked by a potential employer are high.
A professional resume writer can take all of the information you provide about your career objective, skills, educational background, and previous work experience, and then create your resume using the format the writer believes will best showcase and market your abilities.
Even if you know your writing skills need work, you can still take advantage of resume-creation software (discussed previously in Chapter 8) to create your own resume, because the software is designed to walk you through the entire resume-creation process and assist you in choosing the best possible wording. If you're willing to make a slightly higher financial investment in your job-search efforts, hiring a professional resume writer can often help you more swiftly land a higher-paying job, because your resume will work harder and become an extremely useful marketing tool.
Professional resume writers come from a wide range of backgrounds. Many are former educators, professional writers or editors, career counselors, headhunters, or human resource professionals. These people typically know exactly how the whole job-search process works and therefore can create resumes for their clients that are specifically designed to get attention.
Depending on the individual you hire to create your resume and the services he or she offers, the fee structure will vary greatly. For most job seekers, having your resume professionally written should cost between $50 and $300, depending on who you hire and how much work is required to create your resume.
If you have already tried to create your own resume, but you're simply not pleased with the final results, many professional resume writers offer less expensive critiquing services. So, instead of writing your resume from scratch, he or she will simply take what you created and improve it, or make suggestions on what you can do to enhance it.
The best way to find a talented professional resume writer is through a personal referral or word of mouth. Ask friends and family who have recently found new jobs if they used a professional resume writer. Also, many colleges and universities offer resume-writing services or workshops for free (or for a small fee), and you can likely obtain a list of professional resume writers from your school's career services office.
The Internet is also an excellent resource for finding professional resume writers, because many of these services operate primarily over the Internet and communicate with clients via e-mail and telephone. Using any Internet search engine or information portal (such as Yahoo!, Excite!, or AltaVista, for example), enter a search phrase such as "resume preparation," "resume creation," "resume writing," or "resume tips" to find a listing of the websites of professional resume writers available for hire.
Another excellent resource for finding a resume writer is the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches (www.parw.com). This is an organization that makes its membership list available to potential clients.
Even if someone is a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches (or another professional organization, such as the National Resume Writers' Association), before hiring a professional resume writer, there are a variety of questions you should ask, listed in Exhibit 9–1.
Although it may seem like there are a lot of questions, keep in mind that by working with a professional resume writer, you are hiring someone to create a document that represents you to potential employers. This document will be the first impression you make when contacting companies. The quality of the writer's work could easily determine whether or not an employer will consider you for a position and how highly a company will value you.
Because you will be providing the professional resume writer with personal information, it's important that you feel comfortable working with the person you ultimately hire. Once you choose someone to create your resume, it's vital that you provide him or her with as much truthful information as possible about yourself, your skills, educational background, and employment history. No matter how good a resume writer is, he or she is not a mind reader. The quality of raw information you provide the writer will greatly determine the degree of impact your resume will have.
"Resume professionals know the business. Most have been on both sides of the process; they have been both hirers and hirees. A professional knows how to present a candidate's skills in the best possible light using key-words, action verbs, and power phrases."
—MIKE, SALES PLANNER
If you're already somewhat successful in your field and looking for a better job that offers greater career growth potential and the ability for you to earn a higher salary, investing in the services of a professional resume writer is just one additional thing you can do during your job-search process to ensure you will achieve your objectives.
On the other hand, if you are seeking an entry-level position, you probably have limited work experience and are still developing your skills. Thus, you will probably be fine writing your own resume or taking advantage of resume-creation software.
Talk with a Resume Preparer
Regina Pontow is a professional resume writer who has created more than 2,500 resumes for clients around the country. Through her Proven Resumes website (www.provenresumes.com), Pontow offers online resume-writing workshops, free tips for writing resumes, and also promotes her personalized resume-writing services.
Pontow has been writing resumes professionally for more than a decade. Prior to starting her own Internet-based resume-writing business, she owned a personnel agency. Before that, she worked for the University of Washington in Bothell, Washington as a job placement specialist. She's also the author of several career-related books and continues to hold resume-writing seminars at colleges and universities.
The Provenresumes.com website was launched in 1997 and currently receives more than 1 million visitors per year. The site offers more than 100 pages worth of free information to job seekers. You can reach Pontow's resume-writing service via the Web. The prices for her resume-writing and resume-critiquing services start at $150, and her typical clients' salaries range froom $20,000 to $250,000. The advice Pontow offers within this interview, however, will be beneficial to all job seekers.
Why should someone hire a professional resume writer?
The biggest problem with job seekers is that they don't know how to pull out and describe the content in their resumes. There is so much information job seekers take for granted about themselves. If a potential employer were to discover some of that information, it would increase the applicant's chances of landing the job. For example, people don't know how to explain their work-related responsibilities, especially if they have generic-sounding job titles. One recent client I had worked for The Walt Disney Company and held the title "Area Manager." This title said nothing about what he actually did and the title itself didn't sound too impressive. Once I started asking questions, however, I learned my client was responsible for training and supervising over 450 employees who worked within one of the Disney theme parks. It turned out my client had extremely marketable management skills that he needed to showcase in his resume.
Many industries, like retail, offer job titles that aren't descriptive. Thus, as a resume writer working for my clients, I ask many questions in order to pinpoint what's special about each of them as an applicant and try hard to determine the most important pieces of information to highlight in each resume.
I believe the biggest reason someone should hire a professional resume writer is because we know how to extract information from our clients and use that information to the client's utmost advantage within the resume. A resume writer also knows exactly how to select a resume format that's most suited to the job seeker. We understand how to take advantage of each resume format, as necessary, when communicating information about our clients.
Are there certain types of job seekers than can benefit most from hiring a professional resume writer?
Just about anyone can benefit from the resume-writing services someone like me offers, especially people who have a hard time conveying their thoughts in writing. One thing people should realize, however, is that while there are thousands upon thousands of people advertising resume-writing services, there aren't too many really talented resume writers out there.
When interviewing a potential resume writer you might hire, make sure they've already written resumes for other people working in your field or who applied for the same type of position as you. Some people specialize in helping clients in specific income areas of industries. Be sure to ask about the resume writer's success stories and determine specifically how they interact with clients. I believe the best way to extract information from a client is by asking dozens upon dozens of questions. Some resume writers, however, will simply take the notes provided by their client and create a resume based only on that information.
What are some of the services a professional resume writer provides?
Virtually all resume writers also write cover letters for their clients, sometimes for an additional fee. Once I work with a client, however, they typically develop a good enough understanding of their own qualifications and strengths so they can write their own cover letters and customize them for each employer. The majority of job seekers, however, want their cover letters written for them as well.
For people who will be job searching online, they will want to have an electronic resume created that takes full advantage of keywords. Creating an electronic resume requires different skills than creating printed resumes, so the job seeker should make sure these are skills the person they hire possesses. Web-based resumes are in essence personal webpages created in the style of a resume. This too is a service that some professional resume writers offer.
What should someone expect to happen once they hire you?
I begin by asking the client to send me whatever resume they currently have. I then ask about the salary range they're looking for, and specifically what type of job they're looking to fill. As part of this process, I ask the client to send me two or three help-wanted ads that represent the type of job they'd want and believe they're qualified to fill. I then read all of that information and create a long list of questions for the client.
Once I receive responses to those questions, I begin to actually write the resume. The writing process alone takes several hours to complete. In addition to the responses to my questions, I expect the client to provide a complete employment history.
What are some of the ways you deal with problems in a client's employment history?
People pursuing jobs in the $30,000 to $40,000 salary range are typically the group with negative information in their employment history that needs to be dealt with effectively in a resume. When someone has negative information or a lack of work experience, I tend to focus on creating a skill-based resume.
In this situation, the skill headings used within the resume become extremely important. I recommend that someone who needs a skill-based resume find at least five to ten help-wanted ads for job openings they'd be interested in filling. By reviewing those ads, the job seeker should be able to create a comprehensive list of skills to focus on within their resume.
There is no point in highlighting skills you know the employer has little or no interest in. So, by evaluating help-wanted ads, you can pinpoint the skills in demand and that will make you more marketable. It's these skills that should be highlighted within your resume.
Once someone hires you, how quickly will he or she receive a resume that's ready to submit to a potential employer?
Alot depends on how quickly the client responds to the list of questions I provide them with. The whole process can be done in a matter of days. Most clients don't realize how in-depth the questions are that I ask, so it takes them several days or a week to think about and then compile their answers.
Do you target a client's resume to each potential employer he or she contacts?
I can target a resume; however, most of my clients take my resume and are able to make small edits in order to customize it for each job they apply for. If someone is applying for several jobs that are very different, that's when it is most important to create truly customized resumes for each of those jobs. I tend to focus the resumes I create to a specific area, since I don't believe general resumes are worthwhile.
Do you offer a guarantee?
I personally don't offer a guarantee, mainly because I don't have to. On my website, I offer over 30 testimonials from clients. I have visited many websites promoting other peoples' resume-creation services. The guarantees they offer are often meaningless.
No matter how good someone's resume is, you can't guarantee it will land them a job or even get them called in for an interview. A resume writer can certainly help improve someone's chances of impressing a potential employer, however.
What is the biggest misconception job seekers have about professional resume writers?
I know my clients are always surprised about how many questions I ask them before I actually begin writing their resume. Some people think they can pay someone to create their resume, but have no involvement in providing content for it. Some resume writers simply make a point to use verbose language to make a resume seem more impressive. I don't believe that's the best approach. I create resumes that contain truthful facts in a way that captures the reader's attention.
When people create their own resumes, what are some of the biggest mistakes you see them make?
People don't promote the best of what they have to offer within their resume, and they're not even aware of it. Most job seekers can't see the forest for the trees when it comes to creating content for a resume. As a result, they don't promote themselves as being as qualified as they possibly can for a position.
Another mistake is that people don't choose the best resume format to meet their individual needs. If you choose to use a traditional chronological formatted resume, each previous job you've held should help convey that you're qualified for the job you're applying for.
Conveying the right job titles and describing your responsibilities in past jobs are also areas where job seekers tend to make mistakes. Not many job seekers properly showcase their skills within their resume.
How important is using keywords as opposed to action verbs within a resume?
Anytime you're going to post your resume online or you know the resume will be scanned into a database, using keywords is the only way a potential employer is going to find you in the database. But, most people still need to have a paper resume for their interview. In this type of resume, using action verbs is critical in order to make your information read properly.
Most people these days need to have two versions of their resume—a paper resume with action verbs, and an electronic resume that uses keywords. Many resume writers will charge extra for creating two types of resumes, but for most job seekers, the additional investment will be well worth it, depending on the types of jobs you're applying for. When creating a keyword-based resume, I typically try to incorporate at least 50 keywords into the document.
Do you have any other advice for a job seeker looking to hire a professional resume writer?
If you take the time yourself to write down solid information for the person you hire to create your resume, the final document you will receive back will be that much better. Providing good job descriptions in advance for past employment experiences, for example, will ultimately save you money because it will take the resume writer less time to gather and process this information before incorporating it into your resume.
If you have already created your own resume and you're receiving a high response rate from potential employers, yet you're not landing any jobs, the problem is most likely with your interviewing skills, not your resume. If, however, you're sending out resumes and receiving a very low response rate, say under 40 or 50%, or the job offers you're receiving based on your resume aren't within the salary range you know you're qualified to earn, then chances are there's something about your resume that needs improvement.
Is there any other piece of advice you can offer to someone looking to hire a professional resume writer?
Yes. Seeing if the person you want to hire is certified is always helpful, but even if they are certified, still ask the important questions before hiring them. Ask to see samples of their work, as well as letters of recommendation from past clients. Just because someone promotes themselves as being certified, it doesn't necessarily mean they're good at what they do.
When considering whether or not to spend a few hundred dollars to have your resume professionally written, think about the income you're losing during the time you're not employed. If having your resume professionally written will help you land a higher-paying job faster, than you're actually saving money, not spending it.
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