Average Resumes Usually Cost Thousands More Than Their Low Fee!
 Tim Cunningham, Fast & Focused's Principal Resume Writer explains why.

    Before I became a resume writer, I worked for fifteen years in purchasing, financial supervision and database sales. At one point, however, I spent a summer trying to find work using a good example of an average resume. What happened during those weeks, I prefer not to think about. Let's just say that until I learned how to write an interview-generating resume, my silent phone taught me all I needed to know about the high hidden cost of using an average resume in a job hunt.

     What is an average resume? The Human Resources people have been reporting for years that almost all the resumes they see consist only of the job seeker's name,  contact information, a work history and responsibility lists for each job that the candidate has held. For some situations this kind of resume is great. If you have been hired already, and your new employer is saying that you need to submit a resume to complete their HR file on you, an average resume is all you need. Just hand it in, and the receptionist will tick off the HR check box. A secretarial service should charge from $40 to $100 to type up this kind of resume from your notes.

     Yet the problem with using these resumes to open the door to job interviews is that they give an employer no reason to interview the job hunter whose career they summarize–which is why such resumes should never be used to find your next job. Using an average resume to make interviews happen almost always leads to a very long and frustrating job hunt, and hidden additional costs of at least $6,000.00. 

     You may be thinking: "Why do you say that?" I say it because even before the recession began, the same HR folks were telling us that average resumes consisting of contact information, job history and responsibility lists were ending up in the "don't call" pile somewhere around 95% of the time. Another point they emphasized was that most people are so nervous in job interviews that they generally don't make a good impression in their first interview; they usually win a job at their second or third interviews because they are a little more relaxed.

     Taken together, these two points mean that anyone using an average resume to apply for 10 jobs each week, is unlikely to get an interview until about around week eight, by which point they are so anxious and nervous that they talk themselves out of consideration, leading to another six to eight week wait for the next interview. So not many career professionals were surprised when one mid-recession study showed that the average executive or professional job hunt was lasting anywhere between 15 to 24 weeks. 

     Today, a resume only containing only contact info, work histories and responsibility lists does not stand out from those submitted by 50-100 other candidates who have done the same jobs. So if you want to be called in for job interviews, you can't afford to bet your career by relying on an average resume. Instead, your resume must be "a self-marketing document, prepared for potential employers or organizations, that effectively communicates your ability to produce significant results and meet critical performance goals and achieve objectives so that you stand out from among other qualified candidates."   

     This definition makes five key points. Let's look at them more closely. An effective resume will:  

     The process of creating a resume must result in job seekers being able to effectively identify and communicate their VALUE to prospective employers. In other words, resumes must clearly communicate the bottom line results and organizational improvements you have brought to the table.

     When you develop your resume, you must establish your differential factor–the highly valuable skills, qualifications and other "employment assets" that set you apart from other well-qualified candidates; thereby making you stand out. Often, the differential factor tips the hiring scale in your favour! For instance, if you have an industry-wide reputation, that reputation might be the differential factor. If you are a Black Belt in Six Sigma; that may constitute the differential factor. When your resume identifies your differential factors, you'll have a distinct advantage in landing a job quickly, even in the toughest of job markets.

     Exciting, well-presented resumes open doors of opportunity that otherwise would not open for job seekers with look-alike resumes. Instead, you resume will race to the top of the pile because it shows employers: "This is what I can do for you, why I am a good fit for your company and the best candidate for the job."

4) Build Your Confidence

     When you understand and communicate the value and attributes that set you apart from their competition, you gain a whole new level of confidence in the midst of the job hunt for you will be proud of what you are marketing . . . namely yourself!

5) Become More Effective In Interviews

     As your resume is prepared, you automatically begin developing the key messages you'll eventually want to communicate in your interviews in order to win the job. And when you arrive at your interviews, properly prepared, you will be a far more engaging and involved candidate. (I owe a big thank you to my PRWA colleague Jay Block for these definitions and observations.)

     Crafting effective interview-generating resumes that build on all these points is no job for a typical secretarial bureau; especially since your resume will only have 15 seconds to make that critical first impression. To craft an effective self-marketing resume, a writer needs broad business knowledge that can quickly and accurately grasp the essential skills, specialized languages and necessary achievements of a huge variety of employment situations, the interviewing skills of a master psychiatrist to delve deep into your memory to uncover almost forgotten incidents that show your skills in action, and the persuasive powers of a top-flight copywriter.

     So it's not surprising that competent professional resume writers charge somewhat more than the typist. Yet in the final analysis, our work is more than worth every penny you invest. For in the long run, a professionally written interview generating resume doesn't cost you a cent: instead it makes far more money for you than the cost you paid up front.  

     At this point, I can hear you asking: "How can this be?"        

     I know I didn't stop and think about the real costs of using an average resume before I started my job hunt that summer. But I should have. And every job hunter should ask, and answer, this one question: "How much will using an average resume cost me?"

     I can't tell you what your exact costs will be, but I can show you how to find out. If you divide the salary of your desired job by 50, you get your gross weekly salary apart from benefits. Multiply that salary by the length of your job hunt, in weeks, and you get your total loss of salary cost. The size of the numbers may surprise you. Consider the following examples:  

     If you want a $50,000 salary, your weekly salary is $961.54 and a 15 week job hunt will cost you $14,423.10. 

     If you want a $100,000 salary, your weekly salary is $1,923.08 and a 15 week job hunt will cost you $28,846.20.   

     The real cost of an average resume in this situation is not the hundred dollars you paid the typist. The real cost of that resume is the figure you get when you plug in your chosen salary and multiply it by the 15-24 weeks that the average job hunt now takes. Once you have that real cost, ask yourself this. "Can I really afford to risk paying that much for an average resume? Would I risk paying $5,000.00 or more for anything else that didn't do what it was supposed to do?"

     Now, consider instead what happens if your resume is one of the 5% of resumes that achieves above average results. Assume that it makes interviews happen not 5% of the time, but 50% of the time (a hit rate that professional resume writers routinely meet or exceed). If you go job hunting with that resume and you apply for 10 jobs in your first week and your resume is 50% effective in generating interviews, the odds are that you will have five interviews by the end of your third week (allowing a week between resume arrival and your first interview date), and at least one job offer from interviews 2 through 5. You might even get more than one job offer, which is a comforting piece of paper to have in your back pocket when you negotiate the final details of your compensation package with your preferred employer.

     So instead of taking 15 weeks, which is the low end of the average, your job hunt has taken only three weeks and your resume has just enabled you to earn an additional twelve weeks in salary, thereby making you somewhere between $4,615.32 (for a $20K salary), $11,538.48 (for a 50K salary) or at least $23,076.96 if you were hired at $100K, or more–not to mention saving you from a great deal of depression and anxiety.

     Now, you can finally ask yourself the real question: "Is it worth investing between 3-5% of the additional salary that a professionally written resume will earn me in order to massively increase my chances of making $4,000, $11,000 or $23,000 or more, as well as significantly reducing the stress and worry of being out of work?"

     Do you see why investing in an effective resume is the most significant investment you can make in your career? Or to put it another way, investing in a professionally written, interview-generating resume doesn't really cost anything. Instead, it makes both dollars and sense.