The world is full of phony resume schemes, all designed to make the seller money and pretend to help the client, for example:

“How to write a resume in minutes.” – Sorry, but the typical professional needs about 4 hours to do a good job with a draft.  All you would get “in minutes” is a boiler-plate document that would look and read like almost every other resume in circulation.  How are you going to stand out if you look like everyone else?

“Great Cover(ing) Letters”  - A cover letter from a book is not you, only a professional who understands who you are – hopefully from a telephone interview and not some silly ‘questionnaire’ – can write a cover letter that collect introduces YOUR resume.

“$20, $30, $40, $50, $60…resumes.” Of course that is possible – when someone is sitting at home and just copying from a list of occupations.  While you would not got to a bargain ‘brain surgeon,’  you should not go to a bargain typist to have your resume created.

A good resume will cost between $150 and $300. A high price does not mean higher value – just higher marketing costs.

Good resume writers have 10 to 20 years of experience and have worked with people from all walks of life.

Give your resume writer these tests:

1.  How long have you been in business?

2.  How many resumes have you written?

3.  Have you ever worked with someone in the (insert your industry here)?

4.  What are some of the key elements to working with someone in the (insert your industry here)?

5.  Are you the person who will do the interview?

6.  Are you the person will write the resume?

7.  Do you charge extra for multiple pages?  (Note:  many that recommend 2-page resumes actually charge for the second page.)

8.  Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers? (Doesn’t prove anything except a desire to appear professional)

9.  Do you hold any Resume credentials (CPRW or CPCC)?

10. What are your academic credentials?

11.  What else qualifies you to write my resume?

12.  What was your most interesting assignment?

Bad, bad, bad.

The result is a poor reader experience.

It turns a short document into a violation of the reader.

It diminishes the credibility of the candidate.

So how do you get around this issue?   Under any word document, pull down the “File” menu and open ‘Properties.’  There you can stuff as many key words as possible without making your resume read poorly.

For months I have been contemplating how to answer this question – which is the most frequently asked question I receive.

There is hardly any simple answer but there are some logical answers:

1.  Most resumes are too long.  Employers are busy or think that they are busy and most just won’t take the time to read anything longer than one page.  One resume I received today to review was 5-pages and more than 2,200 words long, obviously too long to get anyone to pay attention; and

2. Many resumes provide too many opportunities to reject the applicant.  For example, put that you are a tennis player on your resume and already every golfer would reject you (or visa versa) and include information about your faith and the rejections will increase.  I tell my clients, that most resumes are rejected because of what data they contain and not because of what data was excluded; and

3. Most resumes I see today start with an “Objective.”  Frankly, the employer doesn’t really care what you want for what they want is someone that (a) will hit the ground running and (b) make the company a profit or (c) fix a problem that has been persistent.

Those individuals who write their own resumes often only do so once every 4-5 years while some Professional Resume Writers write that many every day.

Resume writers that stay in business are generally those that have proven, over the years, that their work performs.