Digital Marketing

Is your resume selling you or is your career cut short now?

A resume isn’t just a piece of paper meant to list the jobs you’ve held or the education you’ve had. It is your introduction to a potential employer and represents the essence of your career, capabilities and skill sets. When you are interested in a job, you have a chance to catch the eye of a prospective employer and it is done when you submit your resume. Within minutes (or more likely seconds), someone will visually scan your resume and make a determination of your potential candidacy for an open position.

The person doing this screening of your qualifications may not know the details of the job you’ve applied for beyond the actual job description and, for better or worse, that means your resume needs to stand out in a way that ensures you can go beyond that initial assessment. To achieve this goal, you must have a well-designed, well-formatted, and well-written resume that markets your skills, experiences, and education in a way that creates a connection to the open position. Unfortunately, most resumes resemble DIY projects that are easily overlooked and quickly discarded by recruiters. When you consider the highly competitive nature of most careers, you can’t afford to have a resume that sells yourself and/or your career short.

Why Consider a Resume Writer?

As a professional resume writer with over 12 years of experience, I’ve seen just about everything regarding the style and type of resumes that most people try to develop on their own. And just because someone has hired a resume writer doesn’t mean her work is the same or of the same quality. People generally seek out a resume writer when they are not getting the results they expected to receive. Someone who really wants to help their clients is not going to take an existing resume and just rewrite or reformat it. That can be helpful for someone who just wants to update their resume, but most people need more help than that, as a truly effective resume won’t be needed for long because a good resume gets noticed right away. And while I have potential clients who need a new resume and are willing to consider hiring a resume writer, there are still a lot of misconceptions that need to be addressed before they’re willing to take the next step.

Misconceptions about resumes

One of the early misconceptions is that a resume writer should have samples and templates available to share with prospective clients. I can describe the method I use, but cannot share the resumes I have completed due to a signed confidentiality agreement. More importantly, I don’t have samples, as every resume I write is custom developed and designed for each new client. Another misconception is that a resume should be limited to a single page. What happens is that people who take this approach will use small font sizes and/or try to fill a page with so much text that it is almost impossible to read, and for most resumes, this slows down the person’s career. For those candidates who have developed significant professional experience, it is not unlikely that your resume will consist of two or three pages of content. Of course, the caveat is that they should not be pages full of detailed text and hard-to-read paragraphs that have been written in a small font size. A resume should be easy to read and highlight the best of a person’s career, from skills to accomplishments.

Reasons for misconceptions

Another misconception has to do with the cover letter, which is often written in multiple paragraphs for people who think a lot is required on that introductory first page. But that defeats the real purpose of a cover letter and minimizes the time a recruiter is likely to spend reading your resume. A cover letter need only express interest in a position and generate a desire within the recruiter to read the attached resume. The underlying reason for these misconceptions is due to the limitless number of online articles and posts written about resumes, along with easily accessible templates and samples. Whenever someone starts sorting through all of these resources, the end result is usually a patchwork of various themes and styles. What makes this worse is that there are few people who can objectively write about their career and the jobs they have held. For example, I’ve written resumes for sales professionals and even professional writers. Also, many people lack exemplary writing skills. It’s not uncommon to see resumes with irregular font sizes and errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, and other mechanical errors. I’ve also seen detailed writing, jobs written as a standard job description, and clichés (think outside the box, be a team player, etc.).

Make an investment in your career

When you consider all of these aspects of a resume and how easily it can become ineffective, you begin to realize that an investment in a professionally written resume is actually an investment in your career development, whether you need a new job now or are watching passively. Consider this perspective: if you wouldn’t walk into an interview in old, worn clothes, then you shouldn’t send a resume in the same condition, nothing less than professional-looking. A resume represents you and your career, and your potential job prospects depend on how well you can convey the best of yourself and what you have to offer to a prospective employer. If you are uncomfortable with some aspect of writing a resume, it will show up in the final product. In addition, if you cannot convey your thoughts well, it will also be reflected in the general tone that is projected in your resume.

Contact a resume writer

If you decide to contact a resume writer, take the time to learn about their background, their approach to writing resumes, and their general willingness to help their clients. A certificate from a curriculum institute or something similar does not automatically guarantee that they are proficient with formatting and editing. And if a resume writer charges excessive fees and makes promises about the results you can expect, also be wary as a resume is only the first necessary step when it comes to securing a new job, and it’s a very important starting point. If you don’t have a chance to talk to someone about your background, your prospects with that employer have been dimmed. This underscores the importance of hiring a professional to develop her resume. You can’t afford to improvise on your own, so to speak, especially if the timing for a new job has become critical or you’ve found it difficult to catch the eye of recruiters and potential employers. An investment in your resume becomes an investment in your career, which can result in helping you find and acquire a new job. If you have any concerns about submitting your current resume, now is the time to contact a professional.

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