What do other CV Writing companies do?

19th Aug 2011

Last week we were approached by a very talented chap (lets call him Dave) who had engaged the services of one of our competitors and was rather underwhelmed by the results. We are huge advocates for driving professional standards across our industry and therefore I thought I would share his experiences with the outside world.

Firstly, it should be said that at all times, the CV Writer was polite and respectful, a good start you may say; however things start to go a bit wrong right from the start.

Dave is expecting to spend some time talking through his career with the CV Writer but instead is asked to complete a questionnaire. Dave duly completes this document and raises his concerns that no one has offered to talk to him in order to explore his career in further detail – he’s concerned that his answers to the questions are not quite hitting the mark and that the information he has furnished the CV Writer with is no better than what is on his existing CV. Anyway, Dave raises his concerns and the CV Writing company retrospectively agree for him to talk to someone. Dave then talks for one hour with zero input from the CV Writer who literally just listens for the whole session, says thanks very much and hangs up.

Dave is now wondering why there was no participation from the CV Writer but crosses his fingers and hopes for the best. Dave is then sent his new CV at which point he contacts us for our advice.

Now I tried to be as supportive towards the CV Writing company as I could and suggested that it was only an initial draft and that he should really raise his concerns with the CV Writer, but once he emailed me the document, I was quite frankly at a loss for words.

The Personal Profile was full of behavioural competencies citing him as a dynamic ‘this that and the other’ with excellent communication skills and the ability to work well in a team as well as on his own (come on guys - surely you can do better than that clichéd old nonsense?). The CV was devoid of any achievements barring a vague mention of leading a project but with no mention of any tangible outcomes to his endeavours; surely an achievement is what was ‘achieved’, not what was ‘done’!!

The CV seemed to lack an understanding of the hot skills that would be required in Dave’s chosen profession. It felt as if the CV Writer would have written whatever Dave had told them without challenging or shaping the content in any way. Surely the job of the CV Writer is not just to write, but to help the customer by shaping the content of the CV in line with the needs of the market.

On a positive note, the CV looked nice, was worded well enough and was clear and concise, so I guess the moral of the story is this - if you want a nice looking, wordsmithed document with weak and irrelevant content, there are plenty of options out there; but if you want a nice looking, worsmithed document with ‘killer’ content that is truly aligned with your market place and provides irrefutable and compelling evidence that you are the right person for the job, be very careful about which CV Writing company you engage!