If you have arrived at the decision to have your resume and cover letter prepared by professionals, what criteria must you apply in making your selection from the among the plethora of available services?

The longevity of a resume service is, of course, key.  Precipitated by 9/11 and a subsequent war, fear and uncertainty sent our economy plunging.  Employers instituted hiring freezes and downsizing initiatives, consumer markets curtailed non-essential spending, and stock values plummeted, creating a vicious, repetitive cycle, particularly for those displaced from their jobs.  Into this environment crept many inexperienced and some unscrupulous individuals seeking to capitalize upon a national tragedy.  Spurred on by the accessibility of the Information Superhighway and driven by inexperience and avarice, numerous untried resume writing services sprang up on the Internet.  As the economy sagged further, new resume writing services continued to mushroom in cyberspace.

In creating the professional documents that directly impact your livelihood, there is no substitute for longevity.  The length of time that a resume service has been in business is a direct result of its genuine commitment to its clients and the skill, talent, and experience of its writers.  The most reliable services are, therefore, the most long-lived, possessed of a substantial, occupationally-diverse client base whose satisfaction generates referral business.

Reliability, in turn, is based upon sound experience in the specialized art of crafting resumes.  In making your selection, ensure that the service demonstrates the ability to understand your industry, your job function, and the importance of that function to potential employers.  Resume services that have been in business the longest should possess knowledge of a broad range of fields and job responsibilities, and should be able to communicate pertinent information to hiring managers.  Their work must empower you by highlighting not only your specific duties, but also your unique accomplishments, which are indicative of your work ethic and future contributions.

Ask also if the service will allow you to be an active participant in the creation of your resume and cover letter.  Active participation infers meaningful dialogue between you, the job candidate, and the person you have selected to write your material.  Is the service willing to work with you by telephone, email, or direct contact?  Will they evaluate your individual background and achievements and thus determine the optimum format for presenting this data, or will they attempt to shoehorn you into a “one size fits all” style?

And how will the dialogue between you and the writer occur?  In addition to its presence on the Web, does the resume writing service maintain physical office locations?  Services that conduct business exclusively online sometimes do not list telephone numbers, and when they do, often do not answer calls or respond to voicemail messages.  As a client, it is your right to modify your resume once you have proofread it, within the terms of your agreement with the service.  Should you wish to speak directly with the writer concerning these modifications, how will you accomplish this?  Services with telephone numbers and physical office locations are more accountable to their clients than those that maneuver solely in cyberspace; they provide you with the opportunity for face-to-face discussions, should you be more comfortable conducting business in this manner.

Will the resume writing service that you select retain your material for a reasonable length of time?  Should your computer system crash, taking your resume and cover letter with it, will the service be able to email your documents to you so that your job search can continue uninterrupted?

Finally, are unsolicited testimonials from the service’s existing clients available for your perusal?  Testimonials speak not only of the quality of the work but also of the varying levels of authority and the fields in which these clients have maneuvered.

Some things are the sum of their parts.  When calculating the benefits that a well-established, quality-oriented resume writing service should provide, be sure that they add up to one that earns your trust.

As a software application released several years ago, Resume Maker appeared to offer salvation to job seekers with no notion of how to present themselves to potential employers.  Providing a fundamental template or layout into which job candidates typed their most basic information, the software was beneficial in getting applicants started on the process of resume making.   Essentially a form to be filled out with dates of employment, names and addresses of employers, job titles, and education, once this information was input, Resume Maker’s job was effectively done.  The applicants themselves were responsible for creating descriptive material that would properly market them to those with the authority to hire.

A resume maker is also a person proficient in crafting documents that will optimize job applicants’ backgrounds and accomplishments.  Although the end product is the resume, there is more to this crucial process than writing.  A professional resume maker must be keenly aware of what employers want to read, and what they don’t, in a resume.  The resume maker must thus be skilled in extracting and analyzing data from the job applicant, understanding what to utilize and what to discard against the candidate’s objective.  In addition to these critical factors, the resume maker must determine which style of resume is most appropriate to the needs of individual clients.  At that point, the resume maker begins the process of writing, editing, and distilling the information into a tool useful in generating interviews.

Clearly, this is a very specific type of writing.  Considering that a future career hinges, in part, upon the quality of one’s resume, the savvy candidate would do well to thoroughly research his or her choice of resume maker.  For more than thirty years, Objective: Resumes has demonstrated knowledge of a myriad of industries and job functions and maintained the utmost standards of professionalism.  With a satisfied client base spanning virtually all walks of life, testimonials from actual clients can be found on this site, confirming the quality and integrity of our work.

Skilled in getting to the heart of your career objective and gathering relevant information regarding your background, Objective Resumes knows how to capitalize upon this information.  As a professional resume helper, we will prepare a format most appropriate for your particular situation.   Blending business acumen with a firm command of the English language, we are well equipped to present the skills and accomplishments that make you both marketable and unique.

Should you seek to transition into another field or a different aspect of your own industry, we are also experienced in highlighting those aspects of your career that will be most attractive to potential employers.

In addition to a synopsis of your career, your personal resume helper will also craft for you a general or targeted cover letter and a follow-up/thank you letter, the latter of which is important subsequent to your interviews.  Your resume helper can also launch a job search for you on the Web, casting your net over as wide or narrow a field as you choose.

In this economy, employers are more discerning than ever and the competition is fierce.  Don’t leave your job search to chance.  Make the right choice of resume helper: Objective Resumes.

Such a resume service can provide:

A job resume with the right balance between objectivity and conceit

Under pressure to produce the job resume that must open doors for you, you can easily lose your objectivity and under-sell or over-sell yourself.  The former error will prevent you from competing with others demonstrating the same qualifications as yours; the latter will present your accomplishments as unrealistic and therefore, unbelievable.  An impartial professional understands how to extract the right information from you and use that data to craft a valuable job resume.

Expertise in writing job resumes that work

How far back into your employment history should you go on your job resume?   Should you put forth every single detail concerning your job functions or omit some things?  If so, what should you omit?  If you were terminated from a position or have gaps in your background, how should you handle these things on your job resume?  What if you don’t possess a college degree, knowing that your competition does?

Unless you have the answers to these critical questions, don’t play Russian roulette; your livelihood hangs upon the quality of your job resume.  Leave the details to the professionals, whose expertise ensures that you enter this aggressive market with a job resume that piques the employer’s interest and compels him/her to grant you the interview.

And, since the experiences of one candidate largely mirror that of her competition, how does one “waitress resume” differ from another “waitress resume?”  Or, for that matter, how can any of these candidates distinguish themselves from their job market competitors?

The answer is surprisingly simple.  It is in the way that the job candidate articulates his/her knowledge, skills, experiences, and accomplishments.  No two candidates for a position are identical.  Each candidate has a unique employment and educational history and different life experiences.  If constructed in the right way, a “waitress resume,” a “laborer resume,” or a “nanny resume” can reflect and promote the unique contributions of the particular job candidate to their respective employers.

Make no mistake:  whether you are a waitress, a limo driver, or the president of a major corporation, you are unlike any other job candidate.  The challenge is to uncover and appropriately express your unique and transferable skills to prospective employers.

Waitress Resume: Where to Start

To do so, some careful consideration of your background and experiences is the best starting point.  For a “waitress resume,” consider the type of establishments at which you have worked and describe them (i.e., fine dining, family dining, café, etc.).  Then, list your core competencies and skills, listing characteristics such as communications skills, relationship management skills, detail orientation, and other skills and attributes that you possess.  Consider what you do in a typical day and the value you have added to the establishments at which you have been employed.

Waitress Resume: The Proper Format

Then, after you have assessed your background, determine the proper format of resume that will best present your background and develop articulate, persuasive content promoting it.  Or, you might engage a professional resume writer who can assist you in uncovering what you have to offer prospective employers and presenting the best expression of you via your resume.  In either event, a “waitress resume” or a resume for virtually any trade or occupation can establish your uniqueness and enhance the probability of your securing the job or position deserving of your talents.