SHOULD I Even Write My Own Resume?
“But Brian,” you might be saying, “You’ve worked with two of the largest resume writing companies in the world. Why are you telling us how to write our resumes on our own?”
Yes. You’re right. I think that most people should engage a resume writing service to write their resume for them. A resume is a marketing document. When companies need to market themselves, they don’t create the advertisements themselves. They hire professional ad-men to help them out: to get the wording right; to organize their message in the most effective way. When you go to sell your house, you don’t try to do it yourself. Of course you can, but most people hire a professional to market their house for them: to understand what works in the market right now; to market everything effectively.
There are certain times in life when you should just hiring a professional to help you. I think you increase your odds of success that way. I think job-seekers should do the same when it comes to resume writing.
Hiring professional resume writers to do things right the first time can increase your chances of getting an interview by orders of magnitude versus doing it yourself. Resume professionals do this day in and day out. They know what works and what doesn’t. They know what works now, as opposed to what used to work. They know – even on a week-to-week basis sometimes – what employers are looking for versus what turns them off. And resume writers often specialize in specific career fields. So they know exactly how a pharmaceutical sales resume should look. Do you?
But hey. Some people are DIY (do-it-yourself) types.
I get that. So this guidebook is for you, if you think you can do it yourself.
You can.
You’d be better off getting some professional help (much, much better off) but if you want to take a crack at it, I’ll show you step-by-step how to do it.
Let me take one last stab at convincing you why you’re better off getting help, and then we’ll get to the good stuff:
- Some people can’t write. That’s just the truth. At ResumeWriters.com and ResumeService.com, they see people from all walks of life. Some of their clients are C-level executives at major Fortune 500 companies. And yet, they’re not the best at putting pen to paper. And they know it. So professional resume writers craft resumes for even the captains of industry.
- A resume writing professional is on the ground every day doing this. They know what works and what doesn’t. Who knows better what works and what doesn’t when it comes to landing interviews: Someone who does this for a living and works with dozens of clients every week and knows what is getting results? Or you, who doesn’t write resumes for a living?
- A professional resume writer’s number one skill is organizing jobseeker information and selling it in the most efficient and effective way possible. They have the impartiality to tell the jobseeker what is important and what isn’t, what can help sell skills and what doesn’t. Is that your number one skill?
- Finally, a resume writer is an impartial 3rd party that can help jobseekers separate the wheat from the chaff, for the reasons outlined above.
My bet is that even when you get to the end of this book and I’ve shown you the right way to write a resume, you’ll realize that you can still benefit from having a professional resume writer give you a polish. Even if you don’t engage the services of one of the companies I’ve worked with and can vouch for, then please, at least go to The Professional Association of Resume Writers (http://www.parw.com/) and look up a professional in your town and have them give you a hand.
And even if you don’t pay a professional, let me take the time here to say: for God’s sake, have someone else take a look at your resume before you send it out. Not just for editing purposes, but for perspective.
Look, we’re all married to our accomplishments. In a way, we’re all too close to ourselves to write about ourselves.
Let someone else look and what you’ve written and tell you what’s truly important about your career and what isn’t. A resume isn’t just a list of everything you’ve done. It’s more about the-important-things-you’ve-done-that-will-convince-somone-to-hire-you. Sometimes, the most important things on a resume are the things you leave out.
But we’ll get to that.
In fact, let’s get to that with the next post…