The other day we were talking to someone who felt confident that he didn’t need our services, because he was a professional writer.  Looking at his resume, however, we found several ways in which it could have been improved upon.  The fact that the author had been out of a job for quite a long time was consistent with our belief that his resume might be part of the problem.  

Here are some reasons a professional writer might benefit from a professional resume writer’s advice: 

If you are a journalist, your objective is to be impartial—not to sell a particular point of view.  To be credible, a reporter gives both sides of the story.  A resume is a sales tool whose objective is to get the writer in front of a buyer.  As a result, there is a difference in the techniques employed in writing a resume and writing an article in a newspaper. 

If you are the author of a book, you have had an editor who edits your work for content, grammar, punctuation, and typos.  A good resume writer is first and foremost an editor. 

If you are a copywriter, you probably have little or nothing to do with the aesthetic decisions in the final product that your work was a part of.  While a resume writer needn’t be another Picasso, when you’ve seen thousands of resumes, you know how to create visual impact where it counts. 

If you are a grant writer, you know exactly who your reader is, what that reader is looking for, and how to appeal to that reader.  Most professional resume writers have experience on the other side of the hiring table—either as employers or recruiters.  They know what employers are looking for and how to appeal to them. 

If you create content for a website, you understand search engine optimization.  A resume’s format should take into account its distribution method.  Will it be posted on a website, given as a handout, or put into a corporate or recruiter database?

At Norwood Career Advisors, we help you to create a basic, visually appealing resume, but then we also teach you to customize your resume for every job and every prospective employer you send it to.  In some cases, we may recommend not sending a resume at all.  Whatever you do, a resume shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all solution.    

Finally, a resume writer can help you to see yourself as others will see you.  As Jeroen Renirie, one of our Advisors, always says, “It is impossible to see the label from inside the bottle.”  A professional resume writer will tell you if your resume sounds like empty boasting on the one hand or much too humble on the other.