I have been often asked by my friends to help and guide them enhance and build their resumes. I must say that , it is a challenging task, it’s a creative task, and it’s a time consuming task.
But I must also say that most people who have approached me for the same are professionals at middle and senior management levels and already have an impressive story around their life and careers. Its really challenging to craft an impactful document with all that bundle of experience. Impactful would not just imply a careful choice of words, but also it means that the document should be able to communicate the relevance of all the past experience to any possible opportunity that may be visible going forward.
One simple logic determines the time and expertise required for resume writing – experience of the job seeker, his professional competence, and the kind of role he or she is going to pitch for in future.
Building a resume for a fresher, or a person with 1-3 years, is more of a documentation job, where in you place a brief of experience, education in a well organized manner. The principle stays the same for people with more experience, however the importance of selecting the right language, and the right and relevant facts start becoming important.
If you are able to understand and identify:
- Which one of you achievements needs to be highlighted to prospective employers ?
- How to present your experience and achievements in a crisp manner in one document ?
If you are reasonably good at writing, you don’t need some one else to help you develop your resume.
For others, it is best suited if you outsource your resume development activity. It also makes sense for you to outsource if despite having the capability and understanding as expressed above, you don’t have the time to develop your own resume.
How do professional resume writing services help you ?
- Save time and effort by way of documentation. Organizing information. Formatting etc.
- Brings creativity in the process – You can understand that your resume represents the brand “you”. It enables highlight your professional value to a prospective employer.
- Aligns the document with possible opportunities in consideration.
Identifying a professional resume writing service.
If you look at the above three areas, where in ideally a resume service should help you, you will be able to judge the level of service on offer by the various professional resume services companies.
If the focus is on quality documentation , formatting, organizing information – almost any available resume services can help you.
However, if the focus is on creating a document that represents you as a individual brand, you need an experienced professional with an understanding of careers, businesses, job market, as well as a person with good command over language. Now , the way we see it – most resume writing services may not be able to help you on this front. Why ?
Resume writing services, the way they are operated by most companies works on the concept of efficiency, productivity, and volumes to justify a reasonable degree of profitability while keeping the prices on the lower side. They have pre-defined processes, templates, choice of words, and would love to process your resume as per their list of processes, templates etc., rather than think of a customized solution for you as an individual. The concept may lead to reasonably good resumes for job seekers at entry level & middle level. The same may become less relevant for professionals at senior management levels and professionals looking at key roles at HOD or business head level.
For senior management professionals / experienced professionals
For senior management professionals, a better ideas would be to look for seasoned independent career consultants and executive search professionals to help them create their profile document either as a paid service or as a complimentary service. Most executive search companies any way have their processes centered around starting with a meeting or an interview with the job seeker to be able to create a profile document so as their experiences can be represented well in front of the clients or hiring companies.
Plan well, and do your research on the capability of resume writing companies , professionals when you get your resume developed the next time. In case you pass it on to some job portals offering the services at a reasonable charge – it is still advised that use their output as a base on which you can do some value addition or seek some professional help for value addition.
Praveen is the Founder & Principal Consultant of KHEdge, a boutique HR & Business Process Advisory firm. Over last 15 years he has advised & worked with promoters, founders, business leaders, HR leaders in areas of - Business Strategy, HR Strategy, Organisation Design etc.