Oh I get it now…You got screwed over by a resume writer or service in the past!

I’m getting more clients that have been down the road of hiring a resume writer and getting burned. They’re a little nervous and skeptical about hiring someone else because they sought help, paid for it and yet the resume is not yielding a return on the investment. Basically, it was crappy and not effective at all. Unfortunately, all resume writers aren’t created equal. There are some good ones and some bad ones.

How can you tell a good one from a bad one? Well here are 3 tips or red flags to look out for.

• 1. If they try to create this “impending doom” or alarmist situation. If they tell you that your resume is simply the one of the poorest thing ever and if you don’t hire them right away you will be doom and so you need to just hire them and pay them $500 or $600 dollars and you can finance it and make payment arrangements but you need to act now and don’t wait because they can help you out since your resume is just so darn bad! Whew, long sentence huh? Seriously, I’ve seen the emails from some of the services and they are long, very long and they lay out this over dramatic plan, explaining why you have got to have them right away.

Hey, you should not feel pressured to hire a resume writer. A good resume writer will simply explain what they can do for you, their services and maybe some testimonies or examples. That’s it. You already know if your resume isn’t working, because no one is calling or emailing you. I don’t need to sell you on that!

Here’s the next warning sign.

• 2. You don’t have an opportunity to follow-up with corrections or questions. I’m hearing from some clients who have used services in the past, once the final product was delivered, they never had a chance to ask questions or make corrections. What? Crazy, you should be given a reasonable time frame for corrections and adjustments. I give my clients 30 days.

If they don’t give you the opportunity to clarify, ask questions or make changes, it’s not the right service.

The 3^rd sign is the price.

• 3. Look, we all want a deal right? But this is your career! So you need to spend a reasonable amount of money to get your resume upgraded. I’ll be the first to admit, pricing is difficult – it varies based on career level, services needed and of course if it’s a military or government transition resumes. This means if you see an advertisement for all resumes $49 bucks or something like that, you should be leery. I would question the level of service and support – are they simply going to put your resume through some predefined processed and crank out a generic product? Probably so.

The very last thing I will add to this is, you get what you pay for folks. If you get someone who writes resumes as a side hobby, or a buddy who knows a “guy” or someone who is an English major to write your resume it probably won’t be any good. A resume is not a term paper. They are different documents for different purposes. Professional Resume Writers research, study and analyze your career field and the type of jobs in which you qualify. They create resumes using the language that the hiring authority wants to hear. Just know, you get out of it what you put into it.

One by one, I’m helping to people get the jobs they want with the companies that they want. Contact me, let’s see if we can make you a little happier. Join the Resume Crusade.

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