When someone hires a professional resume writer, they are paying for the skills that writer has, providing the facts that the resume contains, and collaborating to present their own qualifications for a particular job in an accurate light. Let’s look at these points a little closer:
Paying For Skills
In today’s job market the resume needs to pass through many filters before the person deciding on interviews even sees it. Resumes have to be written to pass those filters, whether it is the keywords a computer looks for or the spelling accuracy that catches a reader’s eye. Professional resume writers are like the industry consultants brought in to give their expert advice on specific problems and come up with effective strategies for resolution.
Providing The Facts
Any professional resume writer who doesn’t insist on using your own facts in the resume is not worthy of the title. Resumes must be factual compilations of your work history, education, skills, etc. Any falsification is asking for trouble, and a professional resume writer will refuse to do it. Their goal is to write a resume that shows what you bring to the position you are applying for; writing it in a way that gets past the filters and puts you in an interview where you can present yourself as a viable candidate.
Collaborating To Present Accurately
The top reason professional resumes are effective is because they are collaborations. It isn’t a matter of handing over a topic, getting a paper someone else wrote, putting your name on it, and turning it in. Professional resume writers get a lot of input from you before they start, ask many questions so they have all the facts, and get your approval before the process is complete. It’s a collaboration, a team-effort, and the information being presented is your own qualifications in the best light so they can be seen accurately. It’s a lot of work, and you contribute to the process. So, is it cheating to hire a professional resume writer? Not if they truly act professionally. A professional resume writer is not pretending to be the person in the resume. They are presenting the person in the resume in the best light possible.
This is probably one of the most common questions job seekers face when creating a new resume.The traditional chronological resume can be daunting when there is a gap in employment. Knowing that you will have to explain the gap during an interview can be even more daunting. No worries! There are several ways to deal with this problem, and any expert resume writer can easily communicate your value regardless of whether or not you’ve been unemployed for a period of time.
Employers understand that there are numerous, legitimate reasons job candidates have gaps in their employment records. You might have taken time away from work to pursue an advanced degree, care for a sick family member, or even raise a family. No matter the reason, it’s best to use a resume format that will highlight your skills and downplay these gaps. Remember that just because you were not officially working, it doesn’t mean that you were idle and learning nothing. You want to play up these points as much as possible without focusing on the periods when you were not employed.
A closely related issue is where someone has had many jobs in a short period of time. This can make a candidate look unreliable when printed on a resume. Again, a resume that highlights skills over chronological employment is normally the best fit. It’s not uncommon for freelancers, technical support personnel, and other contract workers to have been contracted by several employers during a short period of time. What is important is making sure that your resume shows the expertise and skills you learned, as well as what accomplishments you’ve achieved in each job.
The best resume writers will focus the reader on a candidate’s skills and expertise, to the point that gaps and/or short contract jobs become a non-issue. If you are writing your own resume, you need to do the same. If you are having your resume professionally created, discuss the matter thoroughly with the writer and make sure that the best possible version of YOU shines through in the final product.
It is inevitable that your experience, skills, and achievements will change and increase.That is just a part of working and progressing in your career. With career progression comes the need to update your resume to reflect your career highlights and history. Since most people don’t really think about updating their resume until they are looking for a new job, job seekers today need to make sure that resume updates are made only after careful thought and time have been put forth. Quick updates could mean making critical errors, and we all know that errors on a resume don’t lead to an interview-errors lead to the trash pile. Here is some food for thought to ponder before you start making revisions to your resume:
If you are rushing to put something onto your resume last minute, chances are it will not look as good as the rest of your resume. You will not take the time necessary to edit and make sure that the piece of information you have just put in matches the flow of the rest of your resume. If one part of your resume looks different from the rest of the document, employers may take this as a sign that you do not give attention to detail, or that you are disorganized.
If you put something on last minute, more likely than not you will forget what it is that you have just put on. This means that in an interview, if you are asked about the addition, you may need to scramble to figure out what exactly it is and why you put it on your resume in the first place. That scrambling looks, to your interviewer, like you don’t know what they are talking about (which could make it seem like you never did it in the first place), and it will make you look inadequate and incompetent. Not a good first impression!
Quick fixes lead to quick errors. Job seekers are more likely to have spelling, spacing and grammar errors when making quick edits. Read your changes over several times and ensure you don’t have typos. Better yet-try a second set of eyes. Ask a friend or colleague to review your changes just to be sure you didn’t miss anything. If you have errors on your resume, the employer will expect that you will make errors in your daily work, and may not see you as a strong candidate for the position, regardless of your skills and expertise.
All in all, it is just better to add additions right when they happen. Make your resume a living document. Receive an award? Add it to your resume. Complete a professional development class? Add it to your resume. Keeping your revisions current will give you time to know exactly what is on your resume and why you included certain information. Doing so will save you from bumbling and looking unprofessional in an interview, as well as will make your resume look more impressive overall.
One of the most important sections of your resume is your employment history. This is also one of the most interesting areas for potential employers. It will give them an idea of a few things: how long you have been working, if the work you have been doing is similar to what they do, and what you may have achieved in each position. A well-written employment history will give potential employers an idea of how you would fit in working for their company.
Employers are looking for quick, impressive information in a resume. Each entry in your work experience should look something like this:
Job Title/Dates of Employment (years)
Company Name, City State
Brief Narrative
Achievement
Achievement
Achievement
This is merely an example. There are many other formats out there to document your employment history, and they should all have the same basic information: dates of employment, the name of the company you worked for, where the company is located, job title, and your duties and achievements. You should include your most impressive on-the-job functions, as well as the ones that are the most like what you would be doing at the new company.
Including the right information in your employment history may be the key to landing an interview, and then, hopefully an offer.
If you are writing your own resume, it is easy to concentrate on the text and content over everything else. You know that your resume needs to “sell” you to potential employers and you need to list your skills, experience, and achievements to do this effectively.
Although the content and listing your selling points is essential for any resume, it isn’t the only thing that you need to give consideration to in order to give yourself the best possible chance at being successful when applying for jobs.
When a job is advertised, there will be a large number of applicants, especially if the job is a good one and pays well. To stay on top of the competition, you must have a resume that stands out above the rest.
If your resume looks dull, messy, or boring, then the likelihood is that the person in charge of processing the resumes received won’t even read it. Your resume should have a clean, crisp layout that will catch the reader’s eye, prompting them to select it from the stack. How your resume flows and reads to potential employers is as important as the content itself.
If you feel that you don’t have the skills to create a layout that will highlight your value, then it may be worth looking into hiring a professional resume writing service. Professional resume writing companies have writers on staff who will help you design a resume with a layout that flows well and showcases your skills in the most strategic manner.
If you were to ask career counselors if a career objective is worth merit, half of them would say yes. Those arguing against objectives will say they are too limiting and usually poorly constructed. Those in favor will say that employers want to be able to determine quickly what you can do for the company and what you’re good at. An objective can help meet that need. To some employers, the lack of an objective translates into a job seeker who doesn’t know what he or she wants. On the other hand, numerous employers say they rarely see a well-written objective.
There’s no doubt that many resume career objectives are poorly put together as they are usually vague and not job specific. This defeats the whole purpose of the objective in the first place.
Job seekers also tend to ignore the employer’s need to know what a potential employee can contribute and list everything that the job seeker wants. For example, a typical self-serving objective will say “To obtain a meaningful and challenging position which enables me to learn the accounting field and which allows for advancement.” If your career objective doesn’t match what the hiring manager has to offer, he or she is not likely to give serious consideration to other positions within the company that you might fit into.
In other words, don’t leave the career objective off of your resume. You can have several versions of your resume saved on your computer that each have a different objective. You could even come up with a specific, tailor-made objective on your resume for each job you apply for. With technology, resumes and objectives need not be “one size fits all.” However, if you go to a job fair where it’s impossible to tailor your objective as you move from booth to booth, or if you’re handing out resumes in a networking situation, it may make more sense to leave your objective off.
If you are still uncomfortable with committing yourself to an objective on your resume, you can use a cover letter to tailor a resume to specific jobs. The cover letter can help bring the resume into sharper focus by elaborating on what the job seeker wants to do and what he or she can specifically contribute to a particular job.
Employers are seeing more objectives being replaced with wording such as summary, skills summary, qualifications or profile. Keywords in these sections are very important if they are tailored to specific job skills.
Objectives should reflect the employer’s perspective, not the job seeker’s, and should tell what the job seeker can contribute. An objective should demonstrate the value the candidate will add to the organization. Objectives should be as concise as possible. Whether or not you choose to include an objective, you may wish to present a skills or qualifications section on your resume
Professional resume objectives receive a lot of criticism. Some say the goals are usually poorly written, and have no real point. Others say that if it’s well written, then it will make the potential employer continue to read the resume. He or she will know what you wish to attain in your profession and your feelings for their organization. Here are some guidelines about writing expert resume objectives. Goals need to be short and powerful sentences, letting the employer know what value you can offer to the company. It’s not necessary to express your dreams in an objective, but instead you need to relate to a particular responsibility.
Even though resume objectives can grab the attention of the hiring officer, in some situations these might not be very good methods to sell yourself. For example, if you need to apply for more than one job or you need to submit your application on line or a job fair, an objective statement can be too restrictive.
As a rule, objectives for entry-level job hunters and professionals should consist of short sentences about their objective in the profile section, not as an isolated heading towards the top of a resume. People with a lot of professional experience will notice that expert resume objectives do not always give them their greatest benefit.
Writing a profile part at the top of your resume is probably the best way to handle this problem. This has to be a 2 or 3-sentence outline of your major areas of expertise, unique talents and skills, as well as your profession goals. If you can write an expert resume, you will probably catch someone’s attention for a job interview.
If you don’t think you can, search online for resume writers who can get your resume tailored to put you in a very favorable light.
