Resume Writer Matthew Greene, M.Phil.

Choosing the best or right resume service for your needs in 2010 is NOT easy! Hundreds of writers make competing claims and promises to help you get hired. Some will lure you with a $69 cookie-cutter resume. But a cheap resume will later cost you a ton in lost job opportunities as well as valuable TIME. You can't afford that. Others offer you resume templates and samples that are NOT suitable for today's job market and recession. Templates will make your resume look like hundreds of others.

How does one choose a reliable resume writing service that will produce the best resume and cover letter for you? This is more important than ever in 2010.

Your resume needs may be straightforward or complex, especially if you are a CAREER CHANGER. Will every service be able to create a high quality and effective resume for you? NO. Can every professional writer prepare a winning resume and cover letter for you? Again, the answer is NO! Some will merely use an outdated Resume Wizard included in Microsoft Office 97. That makes it 10-12 years old not suitable for today's job market.

Anyone with good writing skills can open a resume office on a shoestring budget and start to prepare "basic" resumes. But it requires years of experience to learn to design and write custom resumes that will beat the competition in 2010.

To be effective in this recession, your resume needs to be the best it can be - a MARKETING tool that will "sell" you. But very few resume services can prepare such a resume. The "basic" or "general" resumes of the '80s and '90s WON'T work today. As a rule, you'll be needing one or more FOCUSED or targeted resumes.

The awful truth is that 9 out of 10 resume services are staffed by inexperienced writers with little or no track record of success. Or they've been typing weak or "basic" COOKIE-CUTTER RESUMES for years. Such resumes look like hundreds of others and will NOT generate job interviews. They WON'T help you to get hired for a suitable and well-paying position in 2010. In fact, such services will cost you dearly. Time is NOT on your side!

To choose the best resume service for you, it is important to find out WHO will be writing your resume. Will the party who persuades you to order the resume be the same person who will later be preparing your resume and cover letter?

How to Evaluate the Reliability of Resume Services in 2010

A low cost or cut-price resume service is usually a waste of time and money because a skilled and experienced writer CANNOT charge such low fees. Your resume will probably be written by a junior member of a "team". Or the service is a paper mill that churns out cheap or "basic" resumes overnight. Avoid them like the plague. You'll find lots of them everywhere.

What about a "high end" service with a great website? Will it also be a first-class writing operation? NO, not necessarily. The founder of that business might have the required experience but his or her assistants may be junior and inexperienced. They may also be paying a high rental for a city office.
One very well-known executive resume service (L dot com) sends its clients boilerplated resume evaluations that are 95% identical and are designed to scare them. It then charges $695+ for executive resumes. The owner of this firm has actually said that your success will depend on which of their resume writers is assigned to do your work. For $695+ you also need to be lucky! Unbelievable! Frankly, it's disgusting!

To complete a form online is NO guarantee that your resume will be written by a qualified or experienced writer. Many out-of-work journalists, teachers or personnel people work part-time for larger resume offices. They are actively recruited but as resume writers, they are only "interns" or newbies. For such persons to say they have READ thousands of resumes means very little. Designing and creating a resume requires many more skills. [To use an analogy: A baseball catcher or football receiver only catches the ball. Neither has the skills of the pitcher or quarterback who do the throwing! Well, selling yourself in a resume is like "pitching" yourself and your value on paper.]

Larger resume services tend to become paper factories. SALESPERSONS answer the phone and their writers use the same "canned sentences" over and over again. I know! So, please be wary of those who boast of having a "team of writers". A TEAM DOES NOT WRITE A RESUME. How will you judge the skill or experience of the party who will be writing yours? You CAN'T! So, you WON'T know what you'll be getting for your money. Rather decide on a smaller operation that is managed by ONE writer. But which one?

The most reliable resume service in 2010 is one that is run by the AUTHOR of a resume book. His or her REPUTATION is your guarantee that you'll get a first-class product for your money. You see, it is very difficult to have a resume book published by a well-known company. This is the highest form of recognition and is worth MORE than any resume certification. [Very few resume books will also become a selection of the Fortune or Money book club which is similar to winning an award.]

But a good resume service may be someone who has had one or two resumes published in someone else's resume book. Or he or she has published articles on resumes in National Business Employment Weekly. That is also a good way to judge the quality of the work produced by that individual -- not his or her writing staff. That service (including M........com) may be hiring less experienced writers to do some of the work. You see, many top writers "outsource" some of the writing to PART-TIMERS! Always ask whether the CHIEF WRITER will be writing your resume.

Many resume writers will offer you one or more CERTIFICATIONS from Resume Associations. Such a certification may name a particular individual (usually the owner) but obviously do NOT also cover his or her inexperienced assistants. (Never rely on supervision or "quality control".) The OWNERS of resume writing services usually write only the $500+ senior executive resumes. Their underlings do all of the others.

In my own resume service, I do all of the writing myself. Because I have been writing winning resumes for 24 years and also wrote a book, Winning Resumes (Penguin), I feel I don't need a formal resume certification to prove that I can write a resume that works. I have hundreds of testimonials. [ http://www.winning-resumes.com/testimonials.htm ].

Besides, what are those resume writing "Certifications" really worth? In 2010, there are about 14 of them and the number is growing. Why do I and so many talented resume writers ignore and even avoid them? PLEASE VISIT JENNIFER ANTHONY'S BLOG. IT IS VERY REVEALING: [ http://www.jennwrites.com/2009/11/26/demystifying-resume-writing-certifications/ ] Now take your pick:

CMRW: Certified Military Resume Writer
MRW: Master Resume Writer
CERW: Certified Expert Resume Writer
CFRW: Certified Federal Resume Writer
CCM: Credentialed Career Manager
ACRW: Academy Certified Resume Writer
CPRW: Certified Professional Resume Writer
CPCC: Certified Professional Career Coach
NCRW: Nationally Certified Resume Writer
CARW: Certified Advanced Resume Writer
CRS+X: Certified Resume Specialist
MCD: Master Career Director
CEIC: Certified Employment Interview Consultant
CECC: Certified Electronic Career Coach

Like you, I am also confused by this list! Which certification tells you that the resume writer also knows how to SELL or market your VALUE to employers in this Recession? NONE! [ http://winning-resumes-blog-mattgreene.blogspot.com/2006/08/best-resume-services-will-sell-you-to.html ]

Such credentials are NOT a substitute for having years of SUCCESSFUL WRITING EXPERIENCE. As you know, in some professions a certificate of completion can be obtained quickly and with relatively little "hands on" experience. Thus, a formal certification does NOT mean that such writers also have the expertise to handle a challenging, complex or unusual resume assignment. [If you are dissatisfied with a resume product or failure to deliver, you can always complain to PayPal, a Better Business Bureau, State Attorney General's Internet Bureau, or Credit Card Company.]

Most AUTHORS of a resume book have NOT bothered to obtain any formal certification from a resume association. Why? One reason is that they DON'T feel like paying hundreds of dollars for each certificate to prove that they know what they already know! Some authors (like myself) were writing successful resumes and had already established their reputations many years before any Resume Association ever existed!

What about a so-called guarantee to rewrite your resume if you don't get interviews within 30 days? This does NOT impress me. Do you know of anyone who has had their resume rewritten by that service? Were they satisfied? Why couldn't they do it right the first time?

Are SAMPLE RESUMES helpful in judging a service? NO, not necessarily. Are their samples "genuine"? Did they write them? Did the chief writer create them? What had to be left out? What was added? Even so, that is NO guarantee that they can also develop yours which might be very different and much more challenging.

How highly a resume writer or service is ranked by major search engines is a useful guide. But it is not foolproof because a high ranking may tell you less about their writing skills and more about their webmaster who has good search engine optimizing skills!