Professional Resumé Writers
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Are they worth the money, or is it just a scam? Does anyone here have any experience with them? Their sites obviously tout their own effectiveness, but I'm rather sceptical about them. I've been job hunting for some time and I'm starting to get desperate enough to try anything short of actually padding my resumé (which some people say I have to do, because everyone else does it and being truthful puts me at a disadvantage). I have enough experience to fill five pages (keeping it as short as possible), but I'm probably doing something wrong because I get so few interviews. Do they want to see an online profile like LinkedIn? Articles on CP? Contributions to open source? A thousand "friends" on Facebook? Daily tweets of nonsensical crap? Every site I Google offers various opinions and it gets confusing after a while.
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Are they worth the money, or is it just a scam? Does anyone here have any experience with them? Their sites obviously tout their own effectiveness, but I'm rather sceptical about them. I've been job hunting for some time and I'm starting to get desperate enough to try anything short of actually padding my resumé (which some people say I have to do, because everyone else does it and being truthful puts me at a disadvantage). I have enough experience to fill five pages (keeping it as short as possible), but I'm probably doing something wrong because I get so few interviews. Do they want to see an online profile like LinkedIn? Articles on CP? Contributions to open source? A thousand "friends" on Facebook? Daily tweets of nonsensical crap? Every site I Google offers various opinions and it gets confusing after a while.
5 pages is way too long; keep it to a maximum of 2 pages. Prune your experience list down to the last 2, 3 meaningful employment with only 1 important thing/feature/improvement you did for each job, and just list the other employments. Maybe they feel you have too much experience and will just skip your resumé, or maybe they feel you've had too many jobs and feel you are not "stable" enough. Do not forget to have a nice cover letter that you will customize for each job prospect; it should highlight your global experience in regards to that job prospect (for example if you did graphic stuff, then say it in more details in the cover letter for a graphic oriented job) Good luck.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Are they worth the money, or is it just a scam? Does anyone here have any experience with them? Their sites obviously tout their own effectiveness, but I'm rather sceptical about them. I've been job hunting for some time and I'm starting to get desperate enough to try anything short of actually padding my resumé (which some people say I have to do, because everyone else does it and being truthful puts me at a disadvantage). I have enough experience to fill five pages (keeping it as short as possible), but I'm probably doing something wrong because I get so few interviews. Do they want to see an online profile like LinkedIn? Articles on CP? Contributions to open source? A thousand "friends" on Facebook? Daily tweets of nonsensical crap? Every site I Google offers various opinions and it gets confusing after a while.
5 pages? Too long! Put yourself in the place of the employer: he wants the best person, for the least money, as quickly as possible. He gets in the morning and BAM! he has a pile of CV's that thick to wade through. How's he to choose which to interview (because interviews are a seriously long and expensive process)? Start by whittling down the pile. In the old days: bin anything with a second class stamp. Bin anything printed on a dot matrix. Bin anything too long to read quickly. Nowadays, bin anything ugly. Bin anything misspelled. Bin anything in Comic Sans. Bin anything too long to read quickly. What's left, you read. Then bin some, and read again. Basically, tailor your CV to fit the role you apply for: that isn't padding, it's making the relevant parts more noticeable and the less relevant parts more "impression" than detail. Older stuff gets less detail than newer stuff, unless it's relevant and still current. 2 pages is about the limit, with an individualized cover letter.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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5 pages is way too long; keep it to a maximum of 2 pages. Prune your experience list down to the last 2, 3 meaningful employment with only 1 important thing/feature/improvement you did for each job, and just list the other employments. Maybe they feel you have too much experience and will just skip your resumé, or maybe they feel you've had too many jobs and feel you are not "stable" enough. Do not forget to have a nice cover letter that you will customize for each job prospect; it should highlight your global experience in regards to that job prospect (for example if you did graphic stuff, then say it in more details in the cover letter for a graphic oriented job) Good luck.
I'd rather be phishing!
Snap! :laugh:
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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Are they worth the money, or is it just a scam? Does anyone here have any experience with them? Their sites obviously tout their own effectiveness, but I'm rather sceptical about them. I've been job hunting for some time and I'm starting to get desperate enough to try anything short of actually padding my resumé (which some people say I have to do, because everyone else does it and being truthful puts me at a disadvantage). I have enough experience to fill five pages (keeping it as short as possible), but I'm probably doing something wrong because I get so few interviews. Do they want to see an online profile like LinkedIn? Articles on CP? Contributions to open source? A thousand "friends" on Facebook? Daily tweets of nonsensical crap? Every site I Google offers various opinions and it gets confusing after a while.
Member 12000837 wrote:
I have enough experience to fill five pages
Really? After 40+ years I would struggle to fill three, but perhaps you use more words than I would. Most employers/recruiters are only interested in the first page, and if that is not enough to sell you then they just toss your CV aside and go on to the next one. I don't know whereabouts you are but in the UK we have a surplus of young people with or without dgrees chasing very few jobs.
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Member 12000837 wrote:
I have enough experience to fill five pages
Really? After 40+ years I would struggle to fill three, but perhaps you use more words than I would. Most employers/recruiters are only interested in the first page, and if that is not enough to sell you then they just toss your CV aside and go on to the next one. I don't know whereabouts you are but in the UK we have a surplus of young people with or without dgrees chasing very few jobs.
Richard MacCutchan wrote:
in the UK we have a surplus of young people with or without dgrees chasing very few jobs
Yet in .NET, we have a shortage and are importing developers from all over the world. It's weird that although there's good money to be made, a decent career that's interesting a lot of the time but most British youngsters won't consider it, or can't be bothered using their own initiative and buy a book or two and use one of the many PCs lying around dormant in people's homes across the country. Kids from outside of the UK are doing it and reaping the rewards while ours sit round complaining about not being able to find a job putting potatoes in sacks.. Oh well. :doh:
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
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Are they worth the money, or is it just a scam? Does anyone here have any experience with them? Their sites obviously tout their own effectiveness, but I'm rather sceptical about them. I've been job hunting for some time and I'm starting to get desperate enough to try anything short of actually padding my resumé (which some people say I have to do, because everyone else does it and being truthful puts me at a disadvantage). I have enough experience to fill five pages (keeping it as short as possible), but I'm probably doing something wrong because I get so few interviews. Do they want to see an online profile like LinkedIn? Articles on CP? Contributions to open source? A thousand "friends" on Facebook? Daily tweets of nonsensical crap? Every site I Google offers various opinions and it gets confusing after a while.
Take a look at this. A little old now, but still holds true: Contracting for Dummies: The CV/Resume[^]
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Are they worth the money, or is it just a scam? Does anyone here have any experience with them? Their sites obviously tout their own effectiveness, but I'm rather sceptical about them. I've been job hunting for some time and I'm starting to get desperate enough to try anything short of actually padding my resumé (which some people say I have to do, because everyone else does it and being truthful puts me at a disadvantage). I have enough experience to fill five pages (keeping it as short as possible), but I'm probably doing something wrong because I get so few interviews. Do they want to see an online profile like LinkedIn? Articles on CP? Contributions to open source? A thousand "friends" on Facebook? Daily tweets of nonsensical crap? Every site I Google offers various opinions and it gets confusing after a while.
I agree with the others - two printed pages should be the maximum, and be sure to list your skills in a summary box. Scanning if you can do C#, JavaScript and some Perl without reading descriptions is a big plus. But, in my view, the most important part is the cover letter. If I take the time to write a personal letter for a particular job that I am actually interested in and explain why I fit this particular situation, then I get a far higher rate of response. I have been lucky enough (thus far) to apply for jobs whilst having one, which allows for confidence (but not arrogance) to surface in the cover letter, and for me, it's worked extremely well to write sharp, detailed, unique and intelligent correspondence.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote:
in the UK we have a surplus of young people with or without dgrees chasing very few jobs
Yet in .NET, we have a shortage and are importing developers from all over the world. It's weird that although there's good money to be made, a decent career that's interesting a lot of the time but most British youngsters won't consider it, or can't be bothered using their own initiative and buy a book or two and use one of the many PCs lying around dormant in people's homes across the country. Kids from outside of the UK are doing it and reaping the rewards while ours sit round complaining about not being able to find a job putting potatoes in sacks.. Oh well. :doh:
How do you know so much about swallows? Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.
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Are they worth the money, or is it just a scam? Does anyone here have any experience with them? Their sites obviously tout their own effectiveness, but I'm rather sceptical about them. I've been job hunting for some time and I'm starting to get desperate enough to try anything short of actually padding my resumé (which some people say I have to do, because everyone else does it and being truthful puts me at a disadvantage). I have enough experience to fill five pages (keeping it as short as possible), but I'm probably doing something wrong because I get so few interviews. Do they want to see an online profile like LinkedIn? Articles on CP? Contributions to open source? A thousand "friends" on Facebook? Daily tweets of nonsensical crap? Every site I Google offers various opinions and it gets confusing after a while.
I thought I had a pretty good resume after I completed it. Just about two pages long. I've had many recruiters reach out and I would submit it to them. I always thought to myself that I hoped to have all the keywords to help me land a new position along with a detail description of projects I've worked on. I've had friends and colleagues review my resume, but I never had a professional resume writer review it. So recently, I had one done on a site called Top Resume. They did a very nice job critiquing my resume. There were many things that I didn't have on my resume that I should. Keywords that are being missed when employers are searching for them. I think it's worth to have a resume writer review and critique your resume (It's free). Then decide to pay the $100-$200 to have a pro write it for you. It could be an investment towards the job you're looking for.
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I thought I had a pretty good resume after I completed it. Just about two pages long. I've had many recruiters reach out and I would submit it to them. I always thought to myself that I hoped to have all the keywords to help me land a new position along with a detail description of projects I've worked on. I've had friends and colleagues review my resume, but I never had a professional resume writer review it. So recently, I had one done on a site called Top Resume. They did a very nice job critiquing my resume. There were many things that I didn't have on my resume that I should. Keywords that are being missed when employers are searching for them. I think it's worth to have a resume writer review and critique your resume (It's free). Then decide to pay the $100-$200 to have a pro write it for you. It could be an investment towards the job you're looking for.
