I am having serious trouble finding a job right now, and feel that among a number of other things, my resume could use a professional re-write. Does anyone have any good experience with resume writing services? What do you recommend.
For the first time ever in 7 years, last year I was in a position where I had to create a resume and apply for a position -- needless to say, because I was lacking any experience in this matter, it all went horrible :)
I noticed the valuable advice he was dispensing around here on HN, then saw his jobtipsforgeeks.com site which is packed with useful information.
For example, I printed out his "How to Apply to Jobs"[2] article and used it as a guideline when applying because it made more sense than writing what just came to mind as I was applying (I hate canned stuff, I always researched the company and personalized my cover letter).
Anyway, reading more and more articles on his website (especially the Java developers have longer resumes), I came to the conclusion that I have no idea what I'm doing and decided to use his professional services.
He went above and beyond.
Rewriting my way-too-long-java-developer-resume live in google docs, getting the time to know me and digging up some notable past accomplishments (why do we usually suck at this?) and all of this close to New Year's.
He's very humble as well, don't let that fool you in thinking he's inexperienced -- I did, only when I saw the final result and the change in response rate did I realize what 20(?) years of experience look like :)
I'm just seeing this now (I just got an email from someone that mentioned it), but thanks to everyone for the kind words about my services and I'd be happy to take a look at your resume (or anyone else that might like a 2nd set of eyes) and offer suggestions for services.
I've written resumes for several HN clients through my company Resume Raiders (http://resumeraiders.com). I've been in recruiting for startups since 1998 and focus a bit more now on writing, which includes resumes/bios/LinkedIn as well as coaching on job search strategy stuff as well.
I'm also running a 15% off discount this week with code 'thegraduate' for anyone who may be interested.
I paid close to $200 dollars and received garbage in response.
The "improvements" they recommended were some incomprehensible re-write of my existing sentences and "reformatting" into a garbage template.
@fecak runs a service called https://resumeraiders.com/ and for $40 I got over 20 bullet points of improvements which dramatically increased the quality of my resume.
You want someone who has experience in the industry that you work in. It sounds like,, if you are a tech person, the offers you are getting on this post are the right way to go. Don't look for some random resume writer out there.
Maybe consider combining the resume service with a recruiter. If you aren't good at selling yourself, that's fine... just let someone else do it for you. That includes writing the resume and finding the leads.
As a fellow resume writer oriented towards the social sciences, life sciences, finance and separately Chinese clients targeting openings all over the world, I have to say @fecak[1]'s contributions and wisdom on his site is impressive. Definitely a good guy to reach out to.
For the first time ever in 7 years, last year I was in a position where I had to create a resume and apply for a position -- needless to say, because I was lacking any experience in this matter, it all went horrible :)
I noticed the valuable advice he was dispensing around here on HN, then saw his jobtipsforgeeks.com site which is packed with useful information.
For example, I printed out his "How to Apply to Jobs"[2] article and used it as a guideline when applying because it made more sense than writing what just came to mind as I was applying (I hate canned stuff, I always researched the company and personalized my cover letter).
Anyway, reading more and more articles on his website (especially the Java developers have longer resumes), I came to the conclusion that I have no idea what I'm doing and decided to use his professional services.
He went above and beyond.
Rewriting my way-too-long-java-developer-resume live in google docs, getting the time to know me and digging up some notable past accomplishments (why do we usually suck at this?) and all of this close to New Year's.
He's very humble as well, don't let that fool you in thinking he's inexperienced -- I did, only when I saw the final result and the change in response rate did I realize what 20(?) years of experience look like :)
Contact him.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fecak
[2] https://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2014/02/10/apply/