There are a lot of good things offered by Professional Resume Services, and each one has been carefully selected to be a good value and a good fit for somebody. But which service will fit YOU?
It might be a bit simplistic, but you have to know what you need first. Then you should do a quick skim through the Products and Resume Services just to get an idea of what’s there so you know what we have. Then it is just a matter of putting the two together the right way.
Start With Your Current Status
You have a job history and a certain set of skills. You may even currently have a job and are hoping to get a new one, or you may have been unemployed for a while and are starting to get a little worried. Whatever is happening in your career right now, whatever has happened in the past, all of your education, volunteer work, and the rest should be written down so you have it in front of you.
Now, write down what you need and want to see happen in your career. Try to get past “I want a job to pay bills” and into “I want a career that accomplishes something,” and define what “something” is. All this brainstorming helps you clarify and assess what your current status and future goals are.
Now Look At What We Offer
Just grab a cup of whatever you like to sip and spend some time roaming around the site. Look at what the Job Search Success System is and what it does. Read through the A La Carte Services section and skim through the various packages. This gives you an overall idea of what is involved with getting a professional resume, or choosing a coaching service will be like.
While you were doing that, did you notice that popup in the lower right corner that kept bouncing up saying, “Let’s Talk!”?
That’s your next step. Now that you have an idea of where you are, where you want to be, and what we offer, it’s pretty easy to set up a time to discuss what would be a good fit for you.
If you are just beginning to realize that you need expert help to find a job or further your career, it can feel pretty overwhelming. Do you start writing a resume? Maybe you should look at the want ads or get one of those professional packages, but which one? When you look at the A La Carte Services, they seem like a cheaper way to get something, but the packages have more stuff. Right?
Or maybe a completely do-it-yourself method would be cheaper. Just do the research and get it done because you have the time, but not the money to pay for it. No, wait! That’s where we started this, at the realization that expert help is what is needed. Where should you start?
Start With Expert Advice
When you look at any page on the Professional Resume Services website, a little contact popup opens up with an opportunity to set up a time to talk. You can look at the calendar and designate a day and time, call the phone number, or leave details and we will get back to you. That opportunity to talk to a person who is completely familiar with the services we provide doesn’t obligate you to buying something, but it gives you all the benefit of a short personal consultation to see what might work.
There’s also a lot of information on this blog to give you a bigger perspective on things. The more you are familiar with different aspects of what affects your career, the easier it is to see how every aspect fits together and creates the whole picture.
There’a a lot of discussion in marketing about “today’s consumer” and the ways we are different than shoppers in the past. And it is true that today’s shopper is different, but the reason is not that people have changed so much. Our choices have changed, giving us online options that were undreamed of before the advent of the internet. Having a lot of options is good if you know what you want and are ruthless about filtering down to the perfect fit. It can be frustrating to come up with nothing that fits, though, right? If you are trying to find the “perfect fit” in a resume service, it gets even trickier because you may not be sure of what you need or want. One thing to filter out in your search would be any resume service that isn’t professionally certified. You are looking for the equivalent of custom tailoring and the expertise of the tailor really makes a difference here. That perfect fit is the result of getting measured and fitted for exactly what you need.
The A La Carte Services offer a basic list of services that can be purchased separately. Reading about each thing on that list will give you an idea about what is available in any good resume service. If all you need is one thing on the list, this is where to get it. The service will still be professional and customized for a perfect fit and you will have the one thing you need.
If you need the equivalent of an entire “outfit,” there’s even an option of customized packages to save you a little money.
There’s a lot of competition out there when you are looking for a job. Sometimes you might think you need a gimmick, something to get the attention of the employer and make you stand out from the crowd. A recent WSJ article, “In Tough Job Market, Applicants Try Resume Gimmicks” has some doozies. After all, if the average number of applicants for one job opening is well over three hundred, you have to try something to get their attention, right?
One guy tried taping his resume to a pillow. It didn’t ship well, but they were able to figure out his contact information and he made it to the interview, but he did not get the job with the company. Another did impress people with the pizza he sent along with his thank you letter after the interview, but that only lasted three months because that was the only time he really delivered on the job (see what I did there? Rimshot)
Bobby Gormsen is the senior recruiting manager at Etsy, a very creative place to work. He’s seen potholder resumes, embroidered cover letters, and applications in corked bottles.
“I’m sort of immune to this stuff,” said Mr. Gormsen. The candidates “get points for creativity, but it only tells one side of the story. We have a set of hard skills an applicant has to meet”—ranging from years of experience to relevant software languages—in order to be considered. No amount of creativity can compensate if those are missing, he said.
It seems obvious that a gimmick is recognized as an attention-getter that doesn’t promise quality. A well-written resume would. The hard skills and experience history that employers look for are clearly shown on a good resume. Expertly written resumes have skillful use of keywords that get you past the robot search engines and on the desk to be read by a person. They don’t need gimmicks, but they do need to be clear and professional.
Professional Resume Services include a number of A La Carte Services in our offerings. This gives you the flexibility to select the service you need without paying for the service you don’t want. You can be creative in putting together the package that gets you the best resume possible and forget about the gimmicks.
