Resume Writers / Services

[undercoverbrother]

I need to spruce mine up.

After 12 years with the same employer it is stale.

An recommendations on services to use or to avoid?

Current Resume Trends?

[oilfanforever]

I think these services are a bit of a waste of money. I think you should format for ease of reading (lots of white space, no more than 7 bullets, etc.), then frame out the key pieces (skills, education, experience, etc.).

That said, the main reason I believe these services are a waste of money is that you need to tailor your resume to each job you're applying for. I believe you should aim to reflect the language they use, and make sure that the accomplishments and responsibilities in your experience section directly speak to the role, the company and their situation, i.e. trying to improve efficiency, in start-up scale mode, coming out of a re-org or post-merger, and so on.

Hope my 2 cents are helpful.

[81MC]

Originally Posted by oilfanforever

you need to tailor your resume to each job you're applying for.

This.

[RichieRich]

There are a few services that may be ok, but some that charge a ridiculous amount and poor outcome. My overseas cousin was trying to get work in Canada and paid huge dollars to some useless firm... they kept submitting CV's instead of resumes, and the CV sucked. And he had been with them for about 2 years. Take control yourself and learn to do it, plus this helps you express what is important during the interview process.


ALSO your Calgary Public Library membership (or most other cities too) include online access to many many training resources, videos, etc... they're great so use them.



I've been going through modernizing my resume/profile lately with a job placement organization so here are some items they harped on:
-Pay attention to what the job posting is saying.. .and use similar or same words in your letter and resume.
- Cover letters definitely must be customized per job application... but often they're still 75% the same basic content for most jobs you'll submit to. For resumes, again... they're still 80-90% the same with just a few key items.
- Spelling and grammar are extremely important. So have someone look over your stuff before sending it out.
- Formatting and consistency. for example don't use a mix of bullets, different indents, a mix of "and" and "&", don't use semi-colons and colons
- Focus on WHAT you did and the RESULT. Listing your job duties doesn't say a whole lot quite often. Yet try to keep it short and to the point. For example you can state that result of XYZ initiative was reduced execution time / lower cost / developed a new application / better user interface / measurably improved retention / developed better process which resulted in ABC, etc...

- Your LinkedIn account is not a mirror of your resume.



Hope this helped a little at least.