Avoid Resume Templates and Cheap Resume Typists

Reasons to avoid the mass-market resume templates

Resumes are like cars and fish...

Why do I recommend that you avoid resume templates, cheap resume writing services, and resume writing software programs?

There are several excellent reasons, which I will go into shortly. For now, the bottom line is that 97% of resumes end up in my trashcan. If you want to be in the top 3% that gets a call, your resume must be different, not the mass-market variety.

Now, when I say different, I have to be careful. Specifically, I would say that most resumes should be in a standard format, and too much creativity can kill your resume just as easily as a boring resume can.

Think of it like a car. In the United States, all cars have the driver’s seat and steering wheel on the left side and pedals on the floor. Still, some cars are manual and some automatic. Some have red paint, some blue, some four-doors, and some two.

In this case, it’s OK for cars to have individual variances because they are marketed to different people. But can you imagine if all cars had different controls? What if some had joysticks instead of steering wheels? What if you steered with your feet in some? That experience in inconsistent design would be hard for car owners to swallow.

Resumes are no different. We, the readers (users) of hundreds of resumes, really prefer to have everything in its place, but it would bore us to death if every resume looked the same. Indeed, much like cars are different and marketed to different customers, resumes must be carefully and individually targeted to the intended audience. Henry Ford once said:

"You can have any color you want, as long as it's black."

Resume templates, for the most part, deliver Ford's vision. One size fits all. If you want to be lost in the 97% crowd, trust your resume to cookie-cutter resume templates.

Resume Writing Services

99% of resume writing services, in spite of their persuasive marketing pitch, are really resume TYPING services. Very few of these have spent any significant time reviewing stacks of candidate resumes or hired significant numbers of people. Most are quickly trained junior writers who haven’t the real-world experience to know what will sink your resume. They are trained to take your old information and plug it into a neat-looking but tired format, much like the resume templates above. One size fits most.

The good ones (and they are FEW) are ALWAYS very expensive because they put in the time to do a thorough and custom job for you. They always include live consultation time with you. If you buy a resume creation package that costs less than $300 for resume writing, you’re getting a RESUME TYPIST: A JUNIOR PERSON who is cramming your talents into a canned presentation. This canned presentation lacks the most important ingredient in a successful resume. You.

The few excellent writing firms out there will charge $500 or more because they will spend time with you. Unfortunately, even in that case, I still find it hard to justify the expense.

As you will find out in my other articles, I am a huge proponent of developing several highly targeted resumes and customizing for nearly every opening. To pay a resume writing service to do this for you is prohibitive.

You are better off learning to design your own resume and sell yourself. This skill will serve you well throughout your career. Besides, you are the one most in tune with what the potential hiring manager might be concerned with, so you can emphasize the solutions to his problems in your resume. Resume templates and resume writing services can never do that for you.

A very old proverb that I personally love:

"If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.
If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime."

I’m trying to teach you how to fish. Once you understand how to turn your resume into a powerful marketing tool, this knowledge will serve you extremely well throughout your career. The resume writing service wants to give you a fish. If you take it, you'll go hungry.

If you just have ONE version of your resume to send, it would be like trying to sell the same car, color and all, to every car buyer who walked on the lot. Each job is different and requires a customized sales pitch. More on that in my Resume Help Tip #6: Creating a Persuasive Sales Argument for YOU.

Resume Templates and Resume Writing Software

It’s easy to find resume templates out there. They are bundled with word processing software and sold cheaply on CD-ROM. It’s very tempting to take the easy way out and pack yourself into one of these resume templates.

I urge you to reconsider.

These use the same fonts, same style, same everything as the 97% crowd. If you want to be in the top 3%, stop doing what the 97% do!

You can use resume templates to get you started, but do make some changes. Customize. Give yourself a clean but unique and fresh look. Design and layout alone are not going to get you the job, but I have seen more than one hiring manager reject resumes just because the candidate was not excited enough about his own career to invest some time in an original resume.

The Bottom Line: You need to be in charge of your own resume. If you don’t yet have the skills, it would be a great investment of time and money to acquire them. Learning to fish will feed you for a lifetime.

Additional resources for learning how to fish:

These resources are under consideration and will be published shortly. I'll have some very good recommendations soon.