Here are some of the questions we have been asked by our clients or potential clients in the past, along with our answers. We hope you find them and that they help you make an informed decision.
However, you may have a question that we haven’t answered. If so, please contact us (mailto: [email protected]) to discuss it. Just give us your name and an active email address to reply. Finally, please note that the terms Curriculum Vitae and CV (or Curriculum Vitae) are interchangeable for the purposes of this article. The resume is the norm in the US, Australia and elsewhere, while the CV is the widely accepted document in the UK.
Questions:
1. Why did someone else write my resume? I know what I’ve done and where I’ve worked, so why go to a third party?
2. I can probably only list my accomplishments, qualifications, and experience. Isn’t that enough?
3. I have registered with an agency. They have offered to write my CV for free. Why should you pay for one?
4. I have seen a CD-ROM based program for producing resumes. Why not use this?
5. My friend just got a job with a CV he wrote himself. He probably can do the same, right?
6. Why use Top Professional Resume Limited?
And the answers to those questions:
1. Why did someone else write my resume? I know what I’ve done and where I’ve worked, so why go to a third party?
This is probably the most frequently asked question we receive. There are a number of reasons for a professional to write her CV or resume.
First of all, most people can’t be objective enough to get it right. What you consider to be your greatest strength or achievement may not be relevant to the target employer or the job you are applying for, and you will almost certainly not appreciate the degree of weighting you should apply to those strengths and achievements if they are relevant. Unless you keep abreast of changing trends in presentation and formatting, the layout and emphasis on various aspects of the information you provide will be hit or miss at best.
Secondly, with specific respect to the format. Recruiters and HR professionals who carry out the hiring process expect the CVs or resumes they receive to be in a “standard” format. This allows them to quickly filter and prioritize the people they want to interview and filter out the rest. This format must be fully known and understood so that, within this rather narrow reference point, the Client can best present themselves to stand out from the crowd. Having said that, a good resume writer will be able to write the resume in such a way that relevant strengths and skills are maximized, while weaknesses are minimized or eliminated, and encapsulate all of this within a calculated format to maximize the chance of selection for the interview.
Which brings us to the third point, which is that none of us can be good at everything.
Whatever our strengths or abilities, that’s why most people turn to a lawyer to draft contracts, a builder to do structural work on their homes or offices, an accountant to minimize their tax liability, and a mechanic to fix the car. car. They employ professionals.
Since we can all operate a word processor, many of us think that we can therefore write a resume or CV for ourselves. While we can certainly list achievements, qualifications, previous employers, etc., and perhaps have a knack for artistic design (which, by the way, is the WORST thing to apply to a CV), only a professional has the ability. collate this information and present it in a way that will help you get ahead of any competition.
It would be crazy to trust something as critical as landing your next job or career change to someone other than a Professional.
2. I can probably only list my accomplishments, qualifications, and experience. Isn’t that enough?
This is actually related to and partially explained by the answer to Question 1. But to elaborate a bit, this is like saying that it’s enough to present the specs of a new car to a prospective buyer and hope that that alone will sell the product.
Compare a Hyundai car with a Mercedes. Both have engines, gearbox, 4 wheels and internal upholstery for driver and passengers. Both will get you from where you are (geographically speaking) to where you want to go, and at the same time if you respect the speed limits. However, there is a vastly different perceived value between them, which explains the huge price difference. That price differential and the difference in perceived value stem primarily from the way the vehicles are marketed and sold, rather than from any actual physical disparities. It’s almost safe to say, I think you’ll agree, that most people, if all other things like price were equal, would prefer and buy a Mercedes. This purchase decision is made based on product benefits (reliability, comfort, praise) rather than features or specifications (4-cylinder engine, synchronized gearbox, 16-inch wheels, etc.).
The same goes for a professionally written CV or CV. Other things being equal, do you think your future employer would prefer a Mercedes or a Hyundai? The only way you’ll tell any difference between two candidates you haven’t met before, especially if their qualifications and experience are similar, is by comparing the appearance of their resumes. Unfortunately, this initial assessment is over in about 8 seconds, so he or she needs to be sold on the relevant factors in that short interval. In sales parlance, the recruiter should be presented with the benefits of hiring you rather than just the characteristics of your previous experience and qualifications.
Your resume is your sales and marketing document; your product brochure. Just as not all cars are the same, neither are two people. However, unless the benefits to the organization of employing you instead of the next person in the stack are quickly and credibly presented to the “buyer”, then you won’t even consider the features.
3. I have registered with an agency. They have offered to write my CV for free. Why should you pay for one?
Agencies exist to provide a steady stream of traffic to interviewers. They don’t care if the company that offers the job hires you or the next person they send. The agency doesn’t care, they get paid anyway. As for the resume or CV they produce for you, the quality will reflect this “sparse” approach. Typically, you’ll fill out a form or have a short interview, and a data entry clerk will enter that information into a software package or word processor. A document purporting to be a resume from the printer will then appear. The process is then repeated for the next candidate, and the next, and so on.
Agencies can “handle” hundreds of new candidates in a week, all of whom must be processed and have a “written” CV. Compare resumes produced by any agency and they will all look nearly identical. How will that help you, as an individual, get through the door? It is more likely luck and good fortune than design. With your resume, like most things in life, you get what you pay for. As the saying goes:
“The bitter aftertaste of poor quality lingers on the palate long after the sweet taste of low (or no) cost is gone forever”
Are you prepared to leave a matter as important as getting your next job in an indiscriminately text-processed, unfocused, mass-produced spec sheet?
Or would you prefer a specific, focused, useful, dynamic and relevant Personal Selling Brochure?
4. I have seen a CD-ROM based program for producing resumes. Why not use this?
There are more labor-saving (labor-saving if you’re on the other side of the “pond”) software tools on the market today than computers, and that’s a lot! Almost everyone is valuable to someone, and resume writing software is no exception. If you have the experience and objectivity to write your own CV (but also see the answer to the 3 questions above), then such software can make the job easier. They’ll give you a choice of formats or layouts (do you know whether to use a chronological or functional format, and under what circumstances?), and inject pre-written, pre-formatted blocks of text describing generic jobs or tasks, etc.
To a price.
What none of these packages can do, however, is take into account your personal qualities, experience, and circumstances. They will not and cannot be objective with respect to the preferences and aspirations of the Client or the target employer. They won’t have industry-specific terminology built into the spell checkers, and they can’t give advice on which skill sets to highlight, which weaknesses to minimize or eliminate (and these can be particularly problematic or subjective, depending on the position applied for), nor can they help you. to overcome periods of unemployment or similar “blank spaces”?
For these you need human intervention – the services of a Professional.
5. My friend just got a job with a CV he wrote himself. He probably can do the same, right?
See the answers to all of the above!
Either he was lucky, or he had the experience. Give us your contact details – you can come and work for TPR!
Ed: One of our writers approached us in exactly this way, so we included the question. You never know. . . . . . ;-}
SHAME-FREE MARKETING PLUG!
6. Why use Top Professional Resume Limited?
There are many other resume or CV writing services out there today, giving you, the client, a plethora of options.
We would always recommend that a potential customer take a look at them before making the obvious selection.
However, we feel that we provide a service that is second to none, and our customers stand behind it. At the end of the day, you basically have to decide only two things:
A. Who do I think will do the best job and get me an interview quickly?
B. Which organization, after evaluating all available options, represents the best value for money? As with all things, the cheapest is rarely the best!
Of course, we are a bit biased, so we won’t answer the rhetorical questions above. However, we’ve been doing this for a while, have many satisfied customers, are members of the Professional Resume Writing and Research Association (PRWRA), and have a genuine desire to help you land that next all-important job. If we can be of assistance with any aspect of your search, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Obviously, we prefer that you become a valued customer. However, if for any reason you decide not to use our services, please take a few minutes to fill out our feedback form so that we can improve our services for others. Who knows, maybe you’ll come back! The website (http://www.top-pro-cvs.com) also gives a lot of extra details if you haven’t been there yet.
Good luck with your job search. I hope this article has been useful to you.
Copyright Top Professional Resumes Limited 2005
