Executive Resume Writing Services: Disturbing Trends in 2021

Executive Resume Writing Services: Disturbing Trends in 2021

Executive resume writing services are more than just writers of executive resumes. Quality executive resume writers ensure you are armed with the right mindset, career documents that showcase your relevancy and accomplishments, proper job landing tactic training and tactical support until you land the executive position you seek. In these uncertain times, be sure to go beyond search engine research and evaluate the chemistry of executive resume writing business models that is best for you.

As you perform your research on executive resume writing services, here are 10 disturbing trends to be aware of that are cropping up in today’s challenging climate. Knowing these disturbing trends ahead of time can help you make the best decision for you and avoid costly mistakes.  

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #1: Not valuing LinkedIn recommendations from successful executive resume writing services clients.

Successful job seekers who landed jobs document their successful job changes using an executive resume writing service via LinkedIn Recommendations. An executive job seeker evaluating executive resume writers can look at prospective executive resume writers’ LinkedIn recommendations to not just read nice comments, but click through to the recommender’s profile and see if they actually succeeded in making a job change using the service under consideration. If someone isn’t valuing LinkedIn recommendations, it’s because they probably don’t have clients regularly experiencing success. Instead, they wrongly prioritize anonymous reviews from review sites that have documented records of fake positive and negative reviews inflating their (or deflating competing) reviews. Look for actual job seeking clients that made job changes to know if the executive resume writing service has a qualitative, successful approach. 

Here are examples of LinkedIn Recommendations where job seekers made successful job changes as seen when clicked through to their LinkedIn Profiles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisarangel

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #2: Putting too much weight on resume certifications and not enough weight on effective competitive market position strategy when compiling the resume.

There is a disturbing trend that if someone has a newly minted resume certification that they are ready to write every kind of resume for every kind of job seeker situation. This couldn’t be further from the truth.  Writing an executive resume is not about writing a list of accomplishments (or worse, only job responsibilities) the job seeker has done in a compartmentalized manner… no. Writing an effective executive resume is about starting with the job target in mind and cherry picking which experiences and accomplishments showcase that job seeker’s ability to be the best choice among other candidates competing for that job. Many new resume writers worry too much about making their candidate look great on paper but forget about how their client will look against competing candidates going for the same job.

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #3: Playing an unethical SEO game writing Top 10 executive resume writing services lists.

This happens when the source of the list places themselves at the top of the list and never used the remaining 8, 9 or 10 services in which they are critiquing. These lists show up when an executive job seeker looks for executive resume writers in Google and other search engines. In essence, these inauthentic lists steal the web traffic of the listed executive resume writers, while, more importantly, deceiving the executive job seeker into thinking this is an unbiased legitimate list. Be sure to Google every company you find on a list, review its LinkedIn recommendations of the business owner, and research each one individually on other objective sites. 

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #4: More and more executive resume writers do not have first-hand experience as an executive.

They haven’t been in the shoes of an executive to know what it takes to lead during economic upswings and downturns. Having first-hand executive experience helps weave this perspective into questions to cultivate executive resume content as the basis for writing an attention-grabbing executive resume.

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #5: Mistakenly thinking executive resume writing is like every other kind of writing.

Executive resume writing is not like every style of writing. It’s as unique a style of writing as is scientific writing as is fiction novel writing as is poetry writing. Executive resume writing is a specialty within resume writing, as well. Writing a staff nurse resume is a specialty just like executive resume writers specializing in executive resumes.

Resume writers who do not regularly write executive resumes may not have the experience to position the executive to be the candidate of choice among the sea of competing executives, and instead, cater to the executive’s ego to list everything the executive wants to list. This latter approach is a sign a resume writer is new to executive resume writing. Most successful executive resume writers know that establishing the position strategy of the document before writing one word of the resume is the root of a successful search in which the executive resume is used.  

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #6: A prolific amount of executive resume writers do not have recruiting backgrounds, which means the writer doesn’t have firsthand insight as to how hiring processes work.

This firsthand knowledge of how hires are made is an edge when writing an interview-generating executive resume. Having an understanding of what recruiter’s look for, knowing how an ATS works, and what job landing tactics are most/least effective are advantages in landing an executive job faster.  

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #7: Thinking the resume is the magic elixir. It’s not. 

In fact, a majority of new executive resume writing services don’t offer job landing tactic training which show an executive job seeker how to use the resume to land interviews. If an executive hasn’t looked for a job in a few years, knowing how to conduct an executive job search successfully is paramount once the resume writing service has crafted the perfect executive resume and LinkedIn profile. 

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #8: Making guarantees where they have no control. 

Sketchy executive resume writers are making guarantees over situations where they have no control over the situation. This gives the executive job seeker a false sense of security. No one can guarantee you getting hired. No executive resume writer has control over a hiring department’s budget to hire you or what an HR manager will think of your interview performance. There is always a risk when conducting a job search and hiring an executive resume writing service. These unscrupulous executive resume writers are not honest about the risk and lead the unsuspecting job seeker to think the executive resume will be the magic elixir—it won’t be.

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #9: Mistaking massive social media followings for competency.

Some solo executive resume writing proprietors seem to be on social media all day long making posts and responding to replies. How do they find the time to do the work for clients if they are on social media all day? Nothing wrong with hiring a social media coordinator, but many of these all-day-social-media resume writers say they are the one managing their accounts. If so, how does one find the time in between selling their services, writing documents, coaching clients for interviews and answering job search questions, if they do it themselves. Think if you want a writer that is dedicating most of their time to writing working on your executive resume.  

Disturbing Executive Resume Writing Services Trend #10: Bashing executive resume writing services business models instead of evaluating job landing success of clients.

Solopreneurs seem to think they alone can only deliver superior executive resumes. Team-based executive resume writing services think they bring the best of many experts together to produce the best results. The truth is reputable executive resume writing services exist in all business model categories as outlined in this Forbes article on executive resume writing services business models. There are questionable executive resume writing services in every business category, as well. The business model alone doesn’t dictate quality. In fact, a team based approach, if they have long-term teammates, can bring the knowledge of more than one expert to an executive’s project.

So don’t assume a solopreneur or a team-based model is your best bet as a model. Look at the success records regardless of the model and value your chemistry with the company in the exploratory stage. There are pros and cons to every business model. A solopreneur has their writing time divided between sales, marketing, administration and writing. Whereas the team-based model has dedicated writers only doing writing but you may speak to a different person to evaluate services. The key is to find the chemistry and process that works best with your communication style, industry experience, and employment situation. 

So what matters more than the business model is the quality of the work, the actual success by real clients defined in LinkedIn Recommendations, and first hand knowledge of how career documents work through the various ways hires happen—not just the ATS. This unique combination can be found in every executive resume writing service business model.  

A quality executive resume writer will ensure you are armed with the right mindset tools, documents, job landing tactic training, and support until you land the job. In these uncertain times, be sure to go beyond search engine research and evaluate the chemistry and business model that is best for you.

To schedule a call with Chameleon Resumes, where we can together evaluate your goals and determine how our team of recruiting-experienced executive resume writers and coaches can help you achieve your goals, use this link to book a chat with us: https://chameleonresumes.com/contact-us.

Be well,

Lisa

Lisa Rangel – Executive Resume Writing Services

Chameleon Resumes