When you’re in desperate straits, should you consider purchasing professional resume writing services? Are they of any value to someone on the wrong side of 40 who has a very strange career history? The answer is “yes” to both questions based on Anna’s experience.
Anna, the divorcee, pursued a conventional secretary/personal assistant career until her twin daughters began attending the local school. Unfortunately, reception class was horrible for both girls. Her distraught mother felt the girls’ only option was to change schools, but she couldn’t afford the local independent school fees on her personal assistant salary.
Anna’s solution was temporary: Temps got full-time work at much better hourly rates than permanent staff, thanks to a severe shortage of legal secretaries. For the next 17 years she held the highest paying office positions. Ironically, one of Anna’s jobs was with a professional CV writing service provider, writing executive CVs and cover letters.
Daughters grow up, pay rates change, and exchanging offices every few weeks loses its allure when you’re in your forties. Anna now wanted a permanent job but she couldn’t even get interviews. Finally, driven by sheer terror about the future, Anna went through her list of organizations that provide professional resume writing services and chose a consultant to get her career back on track.
When you hire professional resume writing services, they spend their time with you writing your resume, right? No, they don’t, to Anna’s hidden horror.
Your professional CV writing services adviser passed everyone of the first half of her session helping Anna decide what her top job goals were and what her target employers were looking for in their ideal candidate. Anna gritted her teeth, barely managing to be polite.
Then, very slowly, Anna began to see why her advisor wanted her to think so carefully about her target employers. With the help of her advisor, Anna decided to focus her job search on legal and accounting practices. These employers are often too small to have in-house IT support. Often their clients are so stressed and emotional that it is difficult to deal with them.
The resume writing services career advisor discovered skills that gave Anna an edge over other job applicants with these employers.
Her advisor discovered that Anna loves IT and her temp job has given her an excellent understanding of different software and software/hardware issues. Anna provided IT technical support to her colleagues and updated and edited her employer websites. As the professional resume writing services adviser explained, Anna’s resume should tell potential employers that they’ll get “two for the price of one”: a first-class PA and a free IT troubleshooter, if the they hire
Anna’s experiences of being harassed during her marriage led her to undergo formal training in conflict prevention and de-escalation. She now uses this training in work situations as well (for example, to calm down a large, aggressive GBH defendant who wanted instant access to her attorney, then in a meeting with another client). Her professional CV writing services advisor encouraged her to highlight good examples like this one, where Anna’s skills at calming down difficult clients have saved her colleagues from a beating.
Anna learned that there were alternatives to the “chronological” resume that she had thought was the only acceptable resume format. By accepting the professional resume writing services adviser’s recommendation to adopt a “functional” resume, Anna now has a resume that sells her skills much better to employers and camouflages her rather unusual career history.
Was it worth the expense of hiring professional resume writing services? Yes, says Ana. “This new CV has gotten me an interview every time I’ve sent it. Recruitment consultants and employers get in touch with me faster and see me differently. The CV also helps me feel more confident about myself”.