Professional Resume Writers - Relevant Experience Counts

Professional Resume Writers should have experience relevant to the candidate.

As an Executive Recruiter, I can usually spot a resume that has been prepared by a professional resume writer - the resume will be clean, crisp, have a well-worded summary, usually will state the candidate’s objective, and will have a format that efficiently uses the entire document without overwhelming the white space.

Another indicator of many professionally-written resumes that I see is that the resume has all the characteristics I note above, and also describes accomplishments that are either irrelevant to the candidate’s objective, or are written in a way that clearly indicates a lack of thorough understanding of the accomplishment. Let me give you an example of how and why this happens.

My brother is a highly accomplished electrical engineer who has specialized in the design of integrated circuits. When he tells me about what he does, it makes no sense to me in the context of accomplishments. Because I can barely plug in an extension cord, everything he does professionally appears to be quite an accomplishment to me.

So, as a test, I tried to help my brother re-write his resume. As an Executive Recruiter, I help my candidates with their resumes on a regular basis. However, I stick to what I know best, which is accounting and finance. But, this time, I was venturing into electrical engineering. Here is the results of the test.

Together my brother and I developed a great Summary that included a powerful Value Proposition, and I was able to help him think through his next career Objective and write it in a way that was very informative.

Then, on we went to writing the KSAs and MSAs (see some of my other articles, or go here KSAs, MSAs for further explanation of KSAs and MSAs.) When I presented the first draft to my brother, he just broke into laughter. I had written abilities and accomplishments that were totally irrelevant to what he wanted to do next. Yes, they were accurate. But, taken within the context of a 20+ year engineer, and within the framework of an engineer that was seeking a Director-level role, what I had written was not close to the mark.

But, how many candidates would have told a professional resume writer that what had been written was wrong, or irrelevant, or maybe even worse? Brothers can be blunt, but if you are paying an "expert" for help, most of us will listen to the "expert", even if we are not comfortable with the outcome.

So, if you choose to use a professional resume writer (and, given my experience as a recruiter, most people should), spend the time to pick a resume writing service that specializes in what you do and what you want to do.

There are many very fine professional resume writing services available to you, and most of them have very qualified professional resume writers on staff. But, if you want an accounting resume or a finance resume, go to a service whose writers specialize in that. Likewise, if you are an electrical engineer, find a resume writing service that can provide resume writers with that type of experience. This rule should apply no matter what field your experience is in, and at every experience level.

Searching for the best resume writing services for you will take a bit longer, but it will be worth the time in the long run.