There are obvious reasons why you might opt to hire a resume writer. Maybe you aren’t getting any calls and you know something isn’t quite right. Maybe you know that writing isn’t your strength and you don’t even want to attempt to put together something subpar. Maybe you have a complicated career story or non-traditional background and don’t know how to deal with it.
These are obvious reasons to reach out for professional help.
But there are other ways a resume writer can add value to your career and job search that you may not be aware of.
1). The very exercise of working with a resume writer can be enlightening
A great resume writer—as part of his or her information intake process—will ask you thought-provoking, value-focused questions in order to determine your unique selling proposition to then craft a compelling career story. This very process can help you uncover and articulate the true value that you’ve delivered to your previous employers that perhaps you hadn’t even thought about.
2). Working with a resume writer will help you to identify overarching personal brand themes
A resume writer will help you determine the core messages you need to be communicating—on paper, on screen, and face to face. Those messages are the lifeblood of your entire communications campaign. Having a very clear idea of your key brand attributes helps you understand precisely what your network and decision makers need to know to see you as the perfect fit for suitable positions. It will help you with everything from steering networking conversations in your favor to deciding on appropriate content to share on LinkedIn to reinforce your brand.
3). It is excellent interview training
A resume writer’s detailed intake process will force you to search for quantifiable data in your old computer files. Doing so will refresh your memory on the exact impact that your initiatives had. Having stories and cases to describe during the interview—where you put an exact metric to the value you delivered—can be much more powerful than generally stating that you “improved business”.
A great resume writer will also help you to filter through the details and get to the meat of the achievements. Some questions that I ask my job-seeking clients, again and again, when we work together is, “So what? Why was that important? How did that ultimately impact the company?” This process helps them to cull the information that is most important to their audience and gives them an understanding of how to focus their interview answers.
If you are considering working with a resume writer because you aren’t getting enough traction in your job search, know that the benefits go far beyond that piece of paper you need. The very process of working with a resume writer will help you understand and transmit your value and personal brand attributes to the people who count—and ultimately coast through the interview process, getting you one step closer to your dream job.
I find it helpful to know that a resume writer would help me determine what kind of core message should reflect my resume. My husband plans to resign from his current work and apply to a higher position in another company. It has been a decade since he last wrote a resume on his own, so I’ll suggest he hires a resume writer soon. Thanks for this!