Comparing Resume Distribution Services

I've written and spoken extensively on the subject of resume distribution services in the past ... and I just keep finding out about more and more of them.

Today, I received a phone call from Martin at ResumeTarget, pitching me on a pre-paid partnership program designed for resume writers and career coaches. I'll write more about the specifics of the program at a later date (I want to call a colleague who is using the program to find out more about her experience with it), but I gave it a test run myself to see what it's all about.

The program is similar to ResumeSpider, an affiliate service I already recommend to my clients. Both firms use an "opt-in" method to recruit hiring managers, recruiters, and employers to receive unsolicited resumes. Instead of just blasting your client's resume to 25,000 contacts (who may or may not be interested in receiving it), these services have your clients narrow down their search, usually by industry and/or geography.

The problem with this, as I found in doing my search, is that you can come up with an impossibly small number of contacts. In the case of a search in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota, and Kansas for a marketing, public relations, or publishing job, the number of available contacts was ZERO.

The good news is, you can preview the number of contacts (and even the list of contact names/firms) before purchasing. So my client wouldn't be disappointed that her resume did not match up with any of the opt-in recipients.

These services, then, are only as good as the lists they are able to compile.

More on ResumeTarget in a future post...