Can A Resume Writing Service Make Your Resume Better Than You?

The process of creating a resume can be a daunting and tedious task for many job seekers. As a result, the professional resume writing service has emerged as a popular solution for those looking to create a polished and effective resume without doing the work. In fact, resume writing and editing is projected to be a $2.4 Billion per year industry in the US in 2023.

With prices often ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars and dubious ROI, there is growing skepticism surrounding the effectiveness and value of these expensive services. I’ll argue here that, in almost all cases, it’s not worth it.

Want to spend $50 to have someone look it over for typos and generic best practices, sure, go ahead. Want to spend $4500 on an executive makeover starting with your resume and LinkedIn profile…umm, I would never do this.

Despite the hefty price tag, a professional resume writing service does not, and in fact, could not possibly, guarantee success. It can’t even guarantee an increase in callbacks for interviews. Many factors influence first-screen selection decisions, and many, many more that influence final hiring decisions. The resume is just one of these factors. Also, in a competitive job market, even the most
well-crafted resume in the world doesn’t necessarily get the callback.

As with any profession, the qualifications and experience of professional resume writers can vary greatly. While some resume writers may have extensive knowledge and expertise in a specific industry or job function, most are bright and enterprising young contractors hired by the resume writing service company. Most often, they’ll have very limited experience in your field and job function and will be relying on generic templates and formulaic strategies for crafting resumes.

A well-crafted resume should be tailored to the specific job opening and industry, reflecting the unique mix of skills and qualifications that make a candidate stand out from the competition. Generic, formulaic resumes and buzzwords can’t, almost by definition, communicate these key unique selling points to recruiters and hiring managers.

Think about it, if the professional resume writer could write a better document than you about what it takes to be the best candidate for the job, they’d probably be competing with you for that job instead of writing resumes. 

This is the main argument against hiring a professional resume writer. Even if the cost were not an issue, only someone as senior as yourself and in your target role and industry would know the role as well as you. And what is more, know how to explain your previous experiences as directly relevant to that role.
This brings us to the importance of customizing the resume for specific job opportunities.

A tailored resume is crucial in today’s competitive job market. Recruiters and hiring managers often spend just a few seconds scanning a resume before deciding whether to move forward with a candidate. A resume that is not highlighting the specific requirements in the job description is much less likely to pass the ATS (Applicant Tracking System) or attract the attention of a recruiter looking for key skills and experiences (keywords) at a glance.

However, you absolutely need flawlessly correct spelling and grammar and an ATS-compliant format, so what should you do? Your best bet is to use a tried and true resume template and then tools like Grammarly along with job search tools like Jobalope, Teal, or JobScan to quickly and accurately tailor the resume that you, the real expert, made to highlight your qualifications.

To wrap up, is there any time in which it may be worth it to pay someone to help you with your resume? Yes, I might make a specific exception to the above advice. Working with people with a lot of recent recruiting work experience at a company in your industry. If you can find a senior recruiter at a company similar to your target companies and want to pay them $50 to look over your resume and suggest a few tips, this may be worth it. Otherwise, just do it yourself using online tools to ensure the format and language are perfect.