6 Benefits to Hiring a Professional Resume Writer
When you’ve decided to look for a new job you want to make that change as fast as possible, to move your life forward. You don’t want to get stuck in an endless cycle of job applications and rejection, month after month.
A professional resume writer will save you time and stress. Even better, they often open up your whole career with a more focused resume.
In the same way, we all think we’re great drivers; we all think we’re great resume writers. That may be true, but how often do you end up actually having to write a new resume? A professional resume writer not only does that most days of the week, they really know what works and what doesn’t. Here are 6 benefits you get when you choose to hire a resume writer.
Benefits of Hiring a Professional Resume Writer
1. Save money with a professional resume writer
2. Save time by using a professional resume writer
3. 10x your resume story
4. Get past ATS software
5. Hit the mark with recruiters
6. Delight the hiring manager
1. Save money with a professional resume writer
If they were free, you’d always use one, so let’s attack the cost issue head-on. Better than being free, they can earn you a literal mountain of money. Compare the resume writing services cost to the cost of spending even one more month out of work, or in a lower-paid job. It’s clear the payback on your investment is almost instant.
They can position you for bigger opportunities by looking at your wider qualities. That can result in a job with a more prestigious employer, a role with more responsibility, or even a step-up promotion. Showcasing your added value also gives you more salary negotiation leverage.
2. Reduce the time to hiring a professional resume writer
Even if you only edit your existing resume, it can be a daunting and time-consuming task to get right. That is especially true if you haven’t done so since you last changed roles. A good resume writer immediately knows what to do for the role you’re interested in.
They’ll research, write, cross-check, re-write and proofread your resume faster than you. If you don’t get it right, you can spend a long time being rejected by employers before you figure out the right way to do things.
3. 10x your resume story
A good resume states your qualifications, relevant experience, and skills for the role. A great resume tells the compelling story of why you, this opportunity, and this employer are perfect for each other. A professional resume writer will both win you an interview and set up the selection panel to favor you.
Illustrating the story through your career path is an art and takes real skill. It’s the difference between a blockbuster Hollywood script and your 7 years old’s ‘ … and then I did this, … and then I did that …’ essay. The story may be identical, but the results will be very different. Even with the same qualifications and skills, other applicants will be a pale grey shadow to your technicolor brilliance.
Having a great story is useless if no one will ever read it. Applicant tracking systems (ATSs) use software to filter out no-hope applications. They scan for a match between your resume and the employer’s job description. The software checks your resume against keywords buried through the ad.
Those keywords vary from one job ad to the next. Their placement within the text of your resume affects their ranking. Your professional resume writer will identify relevant keywords and insert them. In the blink of an eye, you’re through to the next round.
5. Hit the mark with recruiters
Now, an actual human will read your resume. This may be a recruiting agent or someone from the HR department of your potential employer. With dozens of resumes to evaluate, they will follow a two-step process – scanning and then reading.
The first stage is where you get your apocryphal 10 seconds of the reader’s time. They attempt to reduce 50 or 60 resumes down to a dozen or so. They’ll scan for keywords, relevance, bullet points, date gaps, quality of qualifications, and the depth of your experience. Your professional resume writer facilitates that process to get your resume onto the ‘maybe’ pile. Looks, style, professional formatting, order, structure, and arrangement all come into play.
The next stage is where your resume is read in-depth for its real quality. Your resume writer knows that this is a comparative process, and this is where the story they present will hit its mark. Ideally, the reader will hand over their pile of 3 to 6 surviving resumes with yours on top.
6. Delight the hiring manager
If you’ve ever had the thought drift through your head – “What do professional resume writers do?” – you may now be thinking they’re superhuman, with all of the above to consider and manage. However, they’ve got yet another shot in their cannon: your added value.
Your resume writer will look at the role offered and research to understand the hiring manager’s biggest problems. These are unlikely ever to be obvious in the ad. They’ll try to show that you have an extra skill, capability, or experience that will tip the scales in your favor. You should then be the one to get that all-important invitation to an interview.
Hiring the Right a Professional Resume Writer
You’ll need to consider the scope of your professional resume writer’s work and how fast you need their input. These choices depend on your own situation. For consistency, commission your resume writer to align your LinkedIn profile and resume. Get them to write a matching cover letter/email introduction text also.
If you create a first draft, there’s an excellent selection of advice in our careers blog section. Also, choose a professional template and read our comprehensive articles. This one – 20 Actions: How to write a good resume– has many detailed tips for you.
We wish you well on your exciting journey through this next stage of your career.
You may also be interested in:
