Writing a good resume is not as straightforward as people think. In fact most people unwittingly make many mistakes when they write their resume. Arguably the biggest mistake of all is to distribute a resume before it has been reviewed and rectified by a professional.
The services of professional resume consultants do not come cheap, but the price is not excessive either. In many cases it is well worth the investment, especially if you land your dream job as a result. Some companies such as ResumeConsultancy.com charge very reasonable fees for professional resume writing services, moreover they also provide a free resume revision service.
If you really have your heart set on a particular job arguably the question should not be 'Can I afford the services of a resume consultant?' but 'Can I afford NOT to use the services of a professional resume consultant?'
After all these days there are many applicants for a lot of jobs, some of whom may present employers with professionally revised resumes. If you are competing against such candidates and your resume has not been revised professionally then you could be wasting your time, no matter how good you are or what skills you possess. Often the candidate who gets the job is not necessarily the best suited candidate, but the one who has the best resume.
So what are the alternatives? Well you could try to write your own resume. If you do it is useful to start by using a low cost but effective online resume writing provider such as Total Resume. If you do this you should at least end up with a resume which looks stylish, presentable and professional enough to submit to employers.
The thing to remember with any resume software, template, or do it yourself service is that although they can help you improve the look of your resume, often it is the actual content which will get you the job. Sites such as Total Resume are great for improving the layout of your resume, but since it is effectively you who enters all the details, they have no control over the all important content.
What this means is that often you end up with a product which looks good but which is perhaps too long, too short, lacks direction, has grammatical errors, has spelling errors, is unbalanced, has format errors, says the wrong things, doesn't say the right things, doesn't sell you enough, tries too hard to sell, is too generic, is too specific, isn't well worded, doesn't get the balance right etc. etc. There are literally hundreds of pitfalls and unless you are an expert you are almost certain to fall foul of several of these.
So what should you do?
Effectively this comes down to you, how much you want a better job, and how much you are prepared to invest in a better resume to give you a good head start.
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