I was clicking around a career blog, and came across an article that recommended having someone write your resume
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/12/12/hire-someone-to-edit-your-resume/#comments

has anyone ever used such a service?

I wrote my own resume (with tips from the university career center!), but will soon be looking for a job in a different part of the country. One service states that an entry level resume (i have about 1 yr of experience) rewrites start at $250.

Is this something I should consider more seriously?

I think it depends on how competitive your job market is. If it’s highly competitive and you need every possible edge to get the job you want. Having someone experienced, knowledgeable, and most importantly, objective re-write your resume could make a huge difference in whether you get invited for an interview.

I just have people I know and trust who are in similar industries review it. I have a kick-ass resume (if I do say so myself) and I love reviewing others and am constantly tweaking my own. I find that most of my friends are the same so it's easier and with 10 sets of eyes looking at it you get things others might not notice as well as having more people look at your qualifications which opens more opps for jobs.

Resume-writing services can be really helpful. I've worked with one in the past to revamp mine, even though I am often contracted to rewrite resumes for other people. $250 sounds very inexpensive, although if it's for entry-level, I suppose there is less to be positioning.

I'm sort of surprised that people are as supportive of this. I suppose it's an aspect of the industry I'm in, but I can't imagine paying that much for a resume. I modify mine to be specific to the job I'm applying for and I think I'd be afraid to touch it if I'd paid that much for someone else to write it.

MoryDD, sometimes you need someone with expertise to give you a fresh spin on the resume front. They can usually still be customized. Depending on how much you pay, you may be given extras to swap in.

I too am surprised that anyone would recommend a resume writing service, but I'm sure it does depend on the industry.

The main rule of thumb I've used in creating my resumes is to avoid the "obituary style" that simply lists your jobs chronologically. Instead I've always organized my resume by topic or skill set, such as "management," "writing," "teaching," etc., and I customize my resume for every job I apply for, emphasizing my experience in whatever skills that job needs. I'm not afraid to leave chronological gaps if a certain job I had isn't at all relevant to the work at hand, and those gaps have never been an issue as far as I can tell (and if someone won't give me an interview because they don't like the fact that I didn't show what I did between June 1992 and April 1993, I honestly wouldn't want to work for someone like that anyway, so it's no loss as far as I'm concerned).

I used to put a "goals" statement at the top of my resume but eventually took that out as I gained more experience. At some point your experience speaks for itself; I think when you're younger a goals statement can be useful but most goals statements are so generic and so full of clichés that many employers just skim over them.

As someone who has reviewed many hundreds of resumes when hiring people over the years, I'd say I was never impressed by "creative" resumes that tried too hard to stand out from the rest (although if I were working in a field like advertising clearly I'd use a different standard). The ones that caught my attention were the ones that were organized clearly and written concisely, demonstrated intelligence and clarity of thought, and didn't rely on the usual clichéd terms that you find in most resumes. But even the obituary style resumes caught my attention if the person had the right kind of experience and enough of it.

Over the years I've broken many of the conventional rules of resume writing and never had trouble getting a job. I always used two-page resumes (sometimes three pages or more if I included a list of selected publications); I've never used a one-page resume unless it was specifically asked for. As I said above I've always flouted the "don't leave chronological gaps" rule and it's never once come up in an interview. But I'm a nonconformist and I've generally worked in fields frequented by other nonconformists; if I were in corporate America I might have had to do it very differently.

My 2 cents: I wrote my own resume, and I can't imagine having someone else writing my resume for me. Looking back on my very first resume, it was pretty crappy. Bad layout, not enough specifics, lots of white space. But hey, I was a college frosh. By my senior year, I'd seen a bunch of other people's resumes, and I gotta tell ya, there is a marked difference between resumes of MBA students and those of undergrads (with regards to layout, wording, style). I went and took elements that I liked and meshed them together into my own resume. The result was quite aesthetically pleasing to my eye, and I'm rather proud of my resume. It has a personal touch (my own choice of fonts, my own choice of layout, my own style), yet is still clean (not too cluttered, not too flashy). Think modern, but a subdued type of modern.

Anyway, point is, I wanted my resume to reflect me, and I couldn't have done that by handing it off to someone else. YMMV.

I can say I've watched people recieving resumes throw away all pages after the first without looking at them. Generally, if your experience is such that you cannot fit what's relevent it on one page, you're probably well enough known that you don't need a resume.

Yeah, someone like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates doesn't even need a resume but they could easily get any job they wanted with a business card-size resume, effectively listing their current position only and nothing more.

One-page resumes work fine if you're in a narrow field or if you've stayed in one career path all your life and you know that the people who are hiring will know everything that's entailed in the positions you've had.

But if you've worked in unconventional fields or if you're changing careers or applying for a job that's not quite like anything you've done before (my favorite kind of job to apply for), some job titles require a bit of explanation. For example, I've worked as an Expedition Coordinator, a Program Manager, and an Assistant Director (a job that was a total misnomer as I didn't manage anything but was really just a grants and contracts negotiator). I find it helps to provide a fairly detailed but concise description of what those jobs entailed to help employers look for experience and transferable skills. And depending on how many past jobs you list on your resume those explanations can push your content over a page.

I do have a one-page resume that I send only when people specify a page restriction, but I think I've only ever used it once or twice in my life.

I use a 1-page achievements summary for my resume. It lists the major achievements/projects/functions for my past jobs, in order of how the most closely relate to the job I'm applying for. T the bottom is a summary of my education and a list of companies/titles/dates.

In addition to that I have a traditional chron resume that I'll send out upon request (almost never happens) that runs to 2 pages (more if I didn't just start dropping off older/unrelated jobs) which people can use if they want more detail. But, realistically, the job description/duties for each company are often similar so I've found that highlighting the most important parts works best. My first 2 points get the most comments and are usually what get people to call me. The first summarizes how I saved my dept $100k/year in operations expenses by implementing/automating procedures. The 2nd summarizes my project management work on a 500k sf/$750M project for the US Govt. Particularly outside of DC the Govt contractor thing seems to impress people.

Honestly, I was surprised to find them recommended as well, which is why I asked the question.

I do think it is hard to be objective about your own resume. I though the resume I used to get my current job was really good, but after a major reformat, I can look back and see that it was too cluttered looking. I want my resume to be great, and I've put effort into it, but I'm out of ideas for improving it. I could see the value in having someone who writes resumes professionally find ways to improve it.

Despite all that, I probably will not go with a service at this point. I assume it would be minimum $250 (I'm pretty entry-level), and I am not ready to spend that on a resume. I don't think the job market is that tight that I need to. Also, it seems like it would be difficult to know if you are dealing with a reputable person or getting ripped off.

If I could have someone do a rewrite of my resume, and then iI could see it before purchasing it, that would be perfect. Obviously things can't work that way.

I'm happy to look at it if you want an extra set of eyes.