One post was by Penelope Trunk, who has established a fairly unique voice in the career blog community. The post was about how to edit your resume with the eye of a professional resume writer -- so naturally, that caught my attention. I scrolled down through the comments (thinking of posting one myself), but was stopped dead in my tracks by this comment by Margaret W on March 18, 2008:
Huh. I hired a professional to rewrite my resume a few years ago; it was a total disaster. It read like a template from CorporateSpeak 101, and was not appropriate for my skillset or for my industry. One can say that this was a cruddy resume writer because he didn't fully understand my goals. Or maybe I didn't communicate them well.
I finally landed a new position after I ditched the plastic resume and handled writing it myself. It also didn't hurt that I got the job through connections. I also got my subsequent (and current) job through connections, where the resume is something they're obliged to hand over to the HR drone for her files.
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Penelope responded:
This is a good time to say that the resume writing industry is sort of like the social worker industry — it's a real crap shoot who you get unless the person comes recommended from someone you trust.
Sidenote to resume professionals: You should blog. It's a way to establish credibility with an audience that is inherently weary of the industry.
So I thought I'd assemble a short list of career professional blogs I've compiled -- as a way of inspiring you to start your own blog.- Keppie Careers (Miriam Salpeter)
- Career-Resumes (Peter Newfield)
- Blue Sky Resumes (Louise Fletcher)
- Resume Power (Kim Isaacs)
- Resume Edge (Darlene Zambruski)
- CollegeRecruiter.com