
Ask HN: Is it worth paying for a professional resume writing service? - poushkar
I am currently thinking about making a really good resume which would properly highlight my strongest sides and experience.<p>The problem is that I am not a native English speaker nor am I good at marketing&#x2F;copywriting.<p>A &quot;good&quot; (read: high in Google search results) resume writing service costs up to $500 which sounds really a lot to me and so I am wondering if it is really worth it&#x27;s money.<p>Has anyone here paid for such a service? Did it make a difference?<p>Thank you.
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gbacon
I assume you’re not talking about a really high end position. Even there, your
network, accomplishments, and reputation will carry you much further than your
resume.

My suggestion as a hiring manager is not to treat your resume like a fine
jewel to be polished once and put on display for all to see. Instead, find out
what the job requirements are and _tailor_ your resume heavily to show that
you are the person they’re looking for.

Know your audience. If your resume will have to get through a keyword screen,
first improve your networking to get a recommendation from the inside. These
always carry greater weight than a resume off the street. Then tailor your
resume to pass the keyword filter. If they want Android, gradle, Java, and
Maven, then make sure those keywords and variants ( _e.g._ , gradlew and mvn)
are present.

Quantify! People can claim vague familiarity with lots of technologies, being
results-oriented, and having “contributed to growth.” Big deal. Almost anyone
can say that. Tell me the size of the code base, your commit rate, the size of
the team, counts of passing tests by type, which deals you closed, proposals
you wrote, and so on. Be specific because it looks less like weasel-worded BS
and differentiates you from the crowd.

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poushkar
Thank you! This is very helpful!

