I recently saw a copy of a professionally-written resume that was shown to me by the person who had paid to have it written for him. I’m not sure how much it cost but he did tell me “it cost me a lot to get it done” so I’ll take his word for it.
In a word, it looked fantastic. It gave me a great first impression…and that was before I’d even started reading it! It looked like it was written in some sort of template or perhaps was made into a PDF because the lettering was unlike anything you’d see in a regular Word document.
Each of the person’s previous jobs had a profile paragraph within a light colored blue box that really stood out from the page and caused my eyes to look right at the contents of the box. No doubt this was the goal and it worked.
As far as the writing of the resume itself, it was also very well done. The resume started off by showing in large bolded font lettering that the person’s career goal was a Key Account Manager position so right away I knew he was in sales even if I didn’t know anything else about him.
All in all, the design and actual written aspect of the resume was excellent. It simply stood out – for the right reasons – and demanded to be read. I suspect it would stand out from the many, many other resumes the average sales manager gets from sales professionals like this one.
Is paying someone to write – and in this case design – your resume a good idea? Depending on the cost and the skills of the person writing and designing it, the cost could certainly be worth it if it gets you in the front door of a company that eventually hires you.
Even if it simply accomplished the feat of getting you more interviews, that might be considered a success too.
