Professional C.V writing services ?

lixxus

lixxus

lixxus

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2006
Posts
2,595
Location
London
Hi Guys,

I made a career change about 3 year half ago into IT after becoming comptia and microsoft certfied.
I was working previously in sales/customer service. My C.V in my opinion is decent and gets me interviews so I guess its working. However I want to land my next big job and feel that first impressions count. I came across these services before but always thought of it as a rip off. I guess because I had the impression I could always do it myself. However more and more on linkedin I see peoples personal profile and pages written in third person speech haha. I have to be honest it looks slick and professional and gives off the vibe of professionalism that the person is **** hot at there job.

Has anyone ever used these services before.

my main gripe with my c.v is the formatting. Not sure if its outdated and what the current trend is.
other questions I had is how much job history should go on there. last 3 jobs or 5 ?
obviously you dont want to be putting stuff from high school. But what is the rule of thumb here ?

I am still considering paying someone professional to look at it but if anyone can give me advice on the above or anything else im missing that would be great.

The aim is to update it and get more hits on these recruitment websites.
 
My blurb on LinkedIn was auto generated by LinkedIn, and it makes me sound amazing. Friends have read it and said it sounds really good, see if LinkedIn can do it for you too?
 
I used one about 10 years ago and it was money well spent went from getting no interviews to getting interviews for almost everything.
 
I used one about two years ago, seemed like a good service. Had to tone it down a bit (and the accompanying generic cover letter) as I thought they'd "over egged" my experience, achievements, skills etc, but then again, I've always suffered from impostor syndrome so maybe they were right!

Every position I've applied for since using their cv/cover letter I've got an interview for, so I suppose that's the ultimate measure on whether it's worth it or not.

I used Taylor-vs.co.uk
 
lixxus said:
Hi Guys,

I made a career change about 3 year half ago into IT after becoming comptia and microsoft certfied.
I was working previously in sales/customer service. My C.V in my opinion is decent and gets me interviews so I guess its working. However I want to land my next big job and feel that first impressions count. I came across these services before but always thought of it as a rip off. I guess because I had the impression I could always do it myself. However more and more on linkedin I see peoples personal profile and pages written in third person speech haha. I have to be honest it looks slick and professional and gives off the vibe of professionalism that the person is **** hot at there job.

Has anyone ever used these services before.

my main gripe with my c.v is the formatting. Not sure if its outdated and what the current trend is.
other questions I had is how much job history should go on there. last 3 jobs or 5 ?
obviously you dont want to be putting stuff from high school. But what is the rule of thumb here ?

I am still considering paying someone professional to look at it but if anyone can give me advice on the above or anything else im missing that would be great.

The aim is to update it and get more hits on these recruitment websites.
Click to expand...

I am looking to do the same to improve my CV for next year as I feel my CV is abit plan in format wise.

Slightly off topic, what Comptia and MS certs do you currently have?
 
malachi said:
I am looking to do the same to improve my CV for next year as I feel my CV is abit plan in format wise.

Slightly off topic, what Comptia and MS certs do you currently have?
Click to expand...

Comptia A+ and MS MTA, landed a decent job with just those two. I need to renew my comptia A+ so i will be doing the comptia linux cert to renew my previous one and get new one too.
 
some interesting feedback guys. I spent last night fixing mine and i think im happy with it.
would still like to look into paid professional c.v writing. Any recommendations would be much appreciated

edit: guys if you know of any cools tweak/tricks to optimise linkedin profile that will be greatly appreciated.

I know that its essentially SEO
 
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I'd be pretty skeptical about them, sure if your CV is utter garbage or you're pretty bad when it comes to writing things in general then there might be some utility there.

I mean if the people writing them for you were really that good then surely they'd work on their own CV and get a better job than writing CVs for more or less minimum wage, I suspect therefore that the people writing them in fact rely on some standard templates/guides produced in house at the company they work for and the process is almost automated albeit with a human following basic instructions.

The suggestion by a poster above re: linkedin is therefore perhaps a reasonable alternative - they literally have automated this process and frankly have more data than anyone else out there from which to make their decisions on how to best go about this.

I used an MS word template when I was 16 and applying for summer jobs... for quite a few years I updated/made changes to that - it got me plenty of interviews and high paying jobs/job offers over those years. More recently I knocked up a CV in LaTeX, I again just used a template and filled it out myself. I'd be tempted to try the linked in idea but aside from that I can use a template myself, I don't need to pay a service to do that for me.
 
dowie said:
I'd be pretty skeptical about them, sure if your CV is utter garbage or you're pretty bad when it comes to writing things in general then there might be some utility there.

I mean if the people writing them for you were really that good then surely they'd work on their own CV and get a better job than writing CVs for more or less minimum wage, I suspect therefore that the people writing them in fact rely on some standard templates/guides produced in house at the company they work for and the process is almost automated albeit with a human following basic instructions.

The suggestion by a poster above re: linkedin is therefore perhaps a reasonable alternative - they literally have automated this process and frankly have more data than anyone else out there from which to make their decisions on how to best go about this.

I used an MS word template when I was 16 and applying for summer jobs... for quite a few years I updated/made changes to that - it got me plenty of interviews and high paying jobs/job offers over those years. More recently I knocked up a CV in LaTeX, I again just used a template and filled it out myself. I'd be tempted to try the linked in idea but aside from that I can use a template myself, I don't need to pay a service to do that for me.
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Just... what?

If someone is a professional CV writer you think they can get a job as a doctor etc by writing themselves a good CV?

These services cost considerably more than minimum wage anyway.
 
Energize said:
Just... what?

If someone is a professional CV writer you think they can get a job as a doctor etc by writing themselves a good CV?

These services cost considerably more than minimum wage anyway.
Click to expand...

I didn't infer they could become doctors, that's your own false conclusion.
 
You can't just get a good jerb with a c.v. Obviously your skills and knowledge is what is judged.
These services are targeted at the lazy. If you have time you can easily research and learn to write a good C.V.

However ask you self. Most top professionals as I mentioned have their Bio;s, c.v etc written in third person haha.
Now you can try and do that yourself without sounding like a D*** or you can have a professional company advise you on how you should market yourself for the job you want
 
Energize said:
Which much better paying jobs do you think these CV writers could walk into simply by improving their own CV then?
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That surely depends on their own skills... but I'm going to assume that CV writer wasn't on their list of potential jobs when they were in 6th form or at university. If we are to assume they are say English literature graduates, history graduates etc.. then there would have been any number of graduate schemes to sell themselves to. Sure maybe there are a few of them who just love writing and will accept any work that enables them to write for a living... but realistically I doubt that would be representative. I suspect that not all of these services do employ say English grads, I strongly suspect that some are simply robotically filling out templates/following in-house guides.


lixxus said:
Now you can try and do that yourself without sounding like a D*** or you can have a professional company advise you on how you should market yourself for the job you want
Click to expand...

Well if you're a serious candidate plenty of recruiters will give you that advice for free - genuinely, you can ask them about tailoring your CV towards a particular role(s) if you like... they're might work for the client but they're also there to make commission. They might get mocked a bit by some technical people but a good recruiter is in a much better position to advise you, they know the sector better than these guys who will knock you up a CV and in plenty of cases they'll probably have a relationship with the company/hiring manager - they've seen the CVs that get more interviews first hand.

Likewise linked in - as I said before I strongly suspect that plenty of companies will make extensive use of templates and in-house guides - as another poster suggested linked in can automate some of this I think taking a look at that could be useful.
 
@lixxus
I'm a freelance writer and I have seen many CVs over the years, with almost none being worthy of submitting to any recruiter. Some have been genuinely dire. It is a simple fact that most people think their standard of English is good (or good enough) and it just isn't. If a career move adds many thousands to your bank account and improves your quality of life then why wouldn't you sink £100 or so into your CV to improve your chances? It's a no-brainer.

dowie said:
I'd be pretty skeptical about them, sure if your CV is utter garbage or you're pretty bad when it comes to writing things in general then there might be some utility there.
I mean if the people writing them for you were really that good then surely they'd work on their own CV and get a better job than writing CVs for more or less minimum wage.
Click to expand...

Your advice is poor and the reasons behind it are completely bizarre. Please redact your personal details and share your CV on here.


This is exactly why most people who are serious about advancing should, at the very least, have a competent writer look at their CV:

ChrisD. said:
I sift CVs and poor ones go straight in the bin. A decent CV is one of the most crucial things during any application process.
Click to expand...
 
lixxus said:
However ask you self. Most top professionals as I mentioned have their Bio;s, c.v etc written in third person haha.
Click to expand...

I really intensely dislike the third person blurb at the top of the CV, and those that use it throughout. Most of our clients find it a little dated. That said, CVs differ from industry to industry. Like most search firms, we have a standard format that we edit all our CVs into, however whenever I make suggestions to my wife's CV she never takes any notice as apparently CVs within media widely differ to those we look at.
 
Edrof said:
Your advice is poor and the reasons behind it are completely bizarre. Please redact your personal details and share your CV on here.
Click to expand...

No thanks, I don't think they're completely bizarre, but obviously we have a difference of opinion and clearly as a professional writer yours is going to be skewed towards justifying your own existence. I'm not saying there isn't a use for professional writers I just don't believe that there is much utility gained from using one to create a CV and I'm also rather skeptical re: whether lots of these services are even employing "professional writers".
 
dowie said:
That surely depends on their own skills... but I'm going to assume that CV writer wasn't on their list of potential jobs when they were in 6th form or at university. If we are to assume they are say English literature graduates, history graduates etc.. then there would have been any number of graduate schemes to sell themselves to. Sure maybe there are a few of them who just love writing and will accept any work that enables them to write for a living... but realistically I doubt that would be representative. I suspect that not all of these services do employ say English grads, I strongly suspect that some are simply robotically filling out templates/following in-house guides.
Click to expand...

There are only a small number of graduate schemes compared to the number of graduates, and if someone is earning a decent amount writing cv's there's little reason for them go elsewhere. I have to agree with edrof that your reasoning is bizarre.
 
amigafan2003 said:
I used one about two years ago, seemed like a good service. Had to tone it down a bit (and the accompanying generic cover letter) as I thought they'd "over egged" my experience, achievements, skills etc, but then again, I've always suffered from impostor syndrome so maybe they were right!

Every position I've applied for since using their cv/cover letter I've got an interview for, so I suppose that's the ultimate measure on whether it's worth it or not.

I used Taylor-vs.co.uk
Click to expand...
That is a pretty bold recommendation there!
I have been thinking about enlisting one of these services for some time now as my CVs are not getting hit that much, may be i should.
 
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