Career Directors International 2010 TORI Award Nominees/Winners

Each year since 2000, Career Directors International (CDI) has sponsored the Toast of the Resume Industry(tm) (TORI) resume writing competition. Here are the 2009 winners.

The director of the TORI Awards is Gayle Howard, of Top Margin Career Marketing.

First-tier judges include:
Cheryl Lynch Simpson, Executive Resume Rescue
Robin Schlinger, Robin's Resumes
Tamara Dowling, SeekingSuccess.com
Barbara Safani, Career Solvers

Second-tier judges are:
Susan Guarneri, AssessmentGoddess.com
Tony Deblauwe, HR4Change
Susan Joyce, Job-Hunt.org
Marty Weitzman, Gilbert Resumes
Sharon Williams, JobRockit

The 2010 Toast of the Resume Industry Nominees and Winners are...

Best Career Change Resume Nominees
Laura Smith-Proulx, An Expert Resume
Mary DeLuca, Preferred Résumé® Group, LLC
Maureen McCann, ProMotion Career Solutions
Wayne Pagani, W.P. Consulting & Associates
August Cohen, Get Hired Stay Hired, LLC

Best Cover Letter Nominees
Holly Reslink, EmpowerLink, LLC
Karen Bartell, Best-in-Class Resumes
Patricia Duckers, CareerPro Global Inc.
Surranna Sandy, Resume Solutions
Camille Roberts, CC Career Services
Doug Morrison, Career Power

Best Creative Resume Nominees
Rosa Vargas, Creating Prints
August Cohen, Get Hired Stay Hired, LLC
Jeri Hird Dutcher, Workwrite
Kris Plantrich, ResumeWonders Writing and Career Coaching Services
Michelle Riklan, Riklan Resources

Best Executive Resume Nominees
Alexander Kofman, Resume Pros 4 Less
Laura Smith-Proulx, An Expert Resume
Rosa Vargas, Creating Prints
August Cohen, Get Hired Stay Hired, LLC
Erin Kennedy, Professional Resume Services
Holly Reslink, EmpowerLink, LLC
Jennifer Rushton, Keraijen

Best New Graduate Resume Nominees
Ginger Korljan, Take Charge Coaching
Jennifer Rushton, Keraijen
Laura Smith-Proulx, An Expert Resume
August Cohen, Get Hired Stay Hired, LLC
Barb Poole, Hire Imaging, LLC

Best International Resume Nominees
Beverley Neil, d'Scriptive Words
Debra Mills, Pro-CV Writing Services
Kim Mohiuddin, Movin' On Up Resumes
August Cohen, Get Hired Stay Hired, LLC
Peter Hill, P.H.I. Consulting

Best Military Conversion Resume Nominees
Mark Holmes, CareerPro Global, Inc.
Michael Kranes, Resume Slayer
Terrie Osborn, Resumes Etc.
Camille Roberts, CC Career Services
Debra Mills, Pro-CV Writing Services
Fran Sheridan, CareerPro Global, Inc.

Best Sales/Marketing Resume Nominees
Laura Smith-Proulx, An Expert Resume

Surranna Sandy, Resume Solutions

Karen D'Anna, Write On Resume Services
Holly Reslink, EmpowerLink, LLC
Jennifer Rushton, Keraijen

Best Technical Resume Nominees
Cheryl Milmoe, Career Management Solutions
Jennifer Rushton, Keraijen
Laura Smith-Proulx, An Expert Resume
August Cohen, Get Hired Stay Hired, LLC
Alexander Kofman, Resume Pros 4 Less

* * * *

Winners were announced at CDI's Award Ceremony at the 2010 Career Empowerment Summit last October in San Diego. First-place winners are identified in bold-italics (above).

Learn more about the TORI Award competition.

Happy Birthday, Justin Bieber!

Okay, so I'm not 14 years old. But I have seen Justin Bieber's movie (in 3D, no less!) -- Never Say Never.

I didn't know much about JB before I saw the movie -- other that what I read in People magazine, for the most part. But my brother has five little girls (ages 4-13) and they've seen the movie seven times now, so Jon and I came along to see it for my niece (& goddaughter) Lauren's birthday in mid-February.

I have to say, I'm impressed. The kid has talent -- and beyond that, he has something to teach resume writers about branding, social media, and (client) relationship management.

As a brand, he's a force. Seven million+ followers on Twitter. More than 6,000 Tweets sent (I'm sure by now he has a social media team helping him with it, but in the early days, it was all him!) More than 22 MILLION Facebook fans for his brand page. And when he cut his hair, he (reportedly) lost 80,000 Twitter followers. Amazing.

A guest post on the TechCrunch blog today gets it: "What Every Entrepreneur Could Learn from Justin Bieber." The BrittInspired blog opines on "What Justin Bieber Taught Me About Social Media."

My favorite bit of wisdom from that post:
 The Bieb’s career started when a talent manager found a video of him singing on YouTube. That’s all it takes. One great piece of content. One person to notice you and unimaginable things can happen. No one is going to notice you if they don’t know you’re there.

Plus, the kid is inspiring. So is the movie. Go see it.
Happy 17th Birthday, Justin Bieber!

Resume Writers Digest 2008 Subcontractor Survey

I have just updated the "Making Money as a Resume Subcontractor" Special Report with the results of the more recent 2009 Resume Writers' Digest Subcontractor Survey. (I will be conducting the 2010/2011 survey in the next few weeks.)

Because the information was replaced in the report, I've decided to "archive" the 2008 results writeup in this blog post.

As you might expect, for many resume writers, subcontracting is a way to smooth out the peaks and valleys of self-employment, at least according to the responses in the Resume Writers’ Digest 2008 Subcontracting Survey.

Sixty-six resume writers completed the survey. Of those, 56 percent are currently subcontract writers, either for an individual or a firm. The rest used to write resumes as a contractor, but are not currently doing so.

More than half of those responding have been subcontracting for at least three years, and fully half of those responding only write for one individual or firm. Most writers produce 1-2 projects per week as a subcontractor.

Compensation

The opportunity to earn extra income is often the driving force behind the decision to subcontract. Interestingly, the average pay for nearly half of all writers was between $51-$150 per project. Nearly three- quarters of writers are paid a flat fee for each project they accept, receiving 21-35% of the client’s charge, in most cases.

Typical projects include a resume and cover letter together (55 percent), followed by a resume only (18 percent). Other services include bios, thank you/follow-up notes, interview preparation training, KSAs, and ASCII text conversions.

Project Management

Most subcontracting projects are assigned via e-mail (61 percent), although a substantial number are also assigned over the phone (17 percent) or through a web portal (12 percent).

The average turnaround time is 3-5 days (33 percent), although shorter timeframes (24-48 hours — 23 percent; 48-72 hours — 28 percent) are not uncommon.

Because standardization is one key to working with a large volume of clients, it’s not surprising that 35 percent of resume writers work with clients via e-mail contact only, transforming old résumés and client worksheets into new documents.

What the writer produces is also fairly uniform — 56 percent of writers work with the client from the draft production through project finalization, working directly with the client to make changes. Seventeen percent produce a draft version only, and 20 percent create the draft but then work with the contracting individual or firm to finalize the project.

Some contracting firms supply templates (24 percent), while most prefer the writer produce the document entirely from scratch (46 percent).

Most subcontract writers are generalists; however, for those that specialize, they most often identify themselves as experts in writing executive resumes.

Substantial growth in subcontracting opportunities exists for resume writers who specialize in federal resumes, as only three percent of survey respondents reported they specialize in this area, and demand from firms seeking subcontractors who have expertise in writing federal resumes continues to grow.

First Look: 2010 Resume Writers' Digest Industry Survey

The 2010 Resume Writers' Digest Annual Industry Survey was conducted in December 2010/January 2011. To give you an idea of who the respondents are, sixty-eight percent of respondents are self-employed full-time (17 percent are self-employed part-time). Seventy-six percent work from a home office only (12 percent have both a home and business office). Twenty-two percent have been writing resumes for fewer than 5 years; 37 percent for 6-15 years, and 35% for more than 16 years.

January is the busiest month for these writers, followed by February, May, September, and October. 

Money is always an interesting benchmark for writers. Hourly rates charged by writers range from $25-$450 per hour, with the most frequently hourly rate cited as $50/hour. Because of the disparity of hourly rates provided, the average hourly charge was calculated at $105/hour -- although, as mentioned, most rates were under $75/hour.

Another question is how many resumes are written each week, on average. The most common response is three resumes per week, although several respondents write up to 10 per week. The average, however, was 3.68 resumes per week.

The next issue of Resume Writers' Digest will contain the full survey results -- including more statistics about resume writers (we compile a profile of what we call the "average resume writer" based on survey responses), plus number of hours worked each week, least favorite part of being a resume writer, biggest challenges, and average resume sale amounts.

Be sure to subscribe to the newsletter to read the full survey results. Subscriptions are free, and are supported by the sale of our information products (books, special reports, teleseminars, webinars).


What do you think of these survey results? How do you compare?