I have rewritten and helped revise a fair number of resumes (without charge to candidates) during my decades as a recruiter, but I’ve never offered my services for a fee, generally feeling that I should stick to what I enjoy most, which is the actual hands-on process of recruiting, itself. A few of my colleagues who enjoy writing offer their work and service for about $500 to $750 per resume, which I assume is a reasonable rate.
I’m curious about people’s opinions of the field of Resume Writing, in general. Were their experiences positive? Did they get better results with their new resumes? Did they feel that the service was helpful and were the rates fair? What were their general observations of the ‘literary’ or professional merits of those who provide the service?
Although I am a direct descendant of six out of eight of William Shakespeare’s great grandparents, and enjoy writing myself, I’ve never charged directly for my writing, even for articles published in major industry journals. I do have the heritage for writing, being related to Robert Frost, Lord Byron, William Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound, Walt Whitman, Henry Longfellow, Jack London, James Joyce, James Thurber, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf, etc. I know this, because I have spent many (too many?) hours researching my genealogy.
My cousin who won a Nobel Peace Prize was unrelated to any of the above-mentioned people, himself, and stated publicly that he never really enjoyed writing or the process of writing, and never felt that he was able to really communicate what he intended as well as he wanted. I do think that there might be a genetic component to self-expression.
Please let me know if you have had any interesting experiences or thoughts with resume writers and their services. Most importantly: “Did it help you in your job search?”