CV Writing Services - waste of time?

OspreyO said:
Never heard or seen that.

What do put in a cover letter then?
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A personal statement is general and not particularly job specific (although I do tweak it a little for certain roles). You know this, you've done that, short and sweet.

The cover letter is tailored to the job. Why you want to work there, and why they would want you to work for them.
 
PardonTheWait said:
A personal statement is general and not particularly job specific (although I do tweak it a little for certain roles). You know this, you've done that, short and sweet.

The cover letter is tailored to the job. Why you want to work there, and why they would want you to work for them.
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Sounds like duplication to me.
 
I tend to just list things in order I think they want to see them.

Bit about me
job experience
skillset
qualifications
education.

Everything is bullet points, and I convert it to PDF before I send it to anyone, as even using Save As, word can keep document history embedded in it.
 
dowie said:
LMAO at getting some call center worker to write your CV for you...

Unless there exists some service which charges you several hundred pounds to write the thing you are basically paying for someone to fill out a template.

Think about it logically - these places charge say £25 - they are not going to spend very long on it for that amount of money. I'm sure you could sit down for a couple of hours and sort out a much better one. If you were an expert at writing killer CVs then why would you resort to working for £8 an hour in a CV writing company - the reality is they are just a bunch of temps/student paid to fill out one of a handful of standard pre-prepared templates.
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:rolleyes: because you have used them.. Think again. CV/covering letter is one of the most important bits to get your foot in the door. You wouldn't dream of doing tax returns without an accountant. Same thing applies.

many have money back guarantees, many will actually phone up and talk to you.
 
Considering the absolute drivel a lot of CV's are some people should get one done. That said people should learn to do it themselves. Perhaps a course on how to do it might be a better idea. That an interviews skills.

Of course keep changing your CV and seeing the results you get back, no reply, or an interview says a lot.
 
As an employer I'd be interested to see some CVs posted up, oddly I find them interesting... should I get out more? :D
 
AcidHell2 said:
:rolleyes: because you have used them.. Think again. CV/covering letter is one of the most important bits to get your foot in the door. You wouldn't dream of doing tax returns without an accountant. Same thing applies.

many have money back guarantees, many will actually phone up and talk to you.
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Given the importance do you not feel that getting someone who doesn't know you personally and probably earns £8 an hour to spend 30 mins filling out a template is a bit silly.

Why wouldn't I do a tax return without an accountant? For me it is just a self assessment form - it isn't rocket science. However if I did have complicated inheritance schemes or off shore bank accounts then hiring an accountant is a bit different - its something that I''m not experienced enough to do and something I will have to pay a reasonable amount of money to have a professional with several years training an experience to help me with.

Writing a CV is a bit different - do you know what qualifications the people writing the CV have, how much experience do they have in applying for jobs? How many great jobs have they successfully applied for in the past given that they now earn a living working for a company that writes CVs for £25 a pop....

Can you not see how massively flawed the whole thing is....

I guess it depends on the jobs you're applying to - if you're not very good at this sort of thing then I could perhaps see why you might need some help. If you're reasonably smart then you would be far better off spending time on it yourself. Its just some office admin **** filling out a template - if you can't do better than that yourself then you're probably not applying for the sort of jobs where it would matter anyway.
 
dowie said:
Given the importance do you not feel that getting someone who doesn't know you personally and probably earns £8 an hour to spend 30 mins filling out a template is a bit silly.
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They phone you up and chat so no it is not just some Muppet filling a form in. No more than you looking at other peoples cvs and creating your own. it is not 30minutes. You can rejecting the cv until they do something you like and if that fails you have 100% money back guarantee. try the service before calling it stupid.

Most people are rubbish at writing cvs, seeing how important a cv/covering letter/application form is it makes perfect sense to get it done properly. it's the difference between 200 application with no interviews and getting interviews on almost all jobs you apply for. And no it is not £25 a pop they are often a lot more £50-200. But still well worth it for a good cv.

If you want to keep handing in rubbish cvs and missing jobs then that's your choice, but these services can be good, but like all things do your research.
 
From looking at CV's a lot of supposedly very well qualified people have woeful CV's. I'm sure they are very dismissive of CV services too.

Its bit like hitting a nail in with a hammer. It looks simple. But its actually quite hard to do well. Yet most people would claim to be able to it.

Thats said I think its well worth spending some time learning on how to do a good CV. Also look at it from the point of view of an employer. They are running through hundreds of CV's, they'll most likely just scan your CV, so does your CV pass a quick scan?
 
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