Over the last few years as I’ve been in the career and job search space I’ve had an interesting realization.
Back when I first started my job search, and every buck seemed to be worth ten bucks to me, I wouldn’t pay for anything unless I absolutely had to. I had very limited funds and was careful to not spend on seemingly frivolous stuff.
My dad had just gone through a transition and paid money for something I didn’t think was important: a resume.
I didn’t pay for it because I thought my money was better spent on paying my bills.
My dad paid for his because he knew he had a problem and needed it solved right, but someone who was a trained expert.
My job search went on for months before I finally went another route (started my own business) while my did had landed in a good job.
I wrote my own resume, even though I didn’t know what I was doing. What I realize now is that I wasted time trying to come up with something I should have outsourced.
What does “wasted time” mean? Let’s say I made $5k/month (which is about $60k/year). If a resume helped me get interviews which lead to a job just 1 week faster than what I could do on my own it would be worth more than $1k to me, right?
My resume was keeping me out of interviews… which was costing me over $1k/week! That is crazy.
Is the price of a getting a resume professionally written (or NOT outsourcing it and trying to DIY (do it yourself)) worth it?
By doing it yourself you save a few hundred bucks in the short term while costing yourself $1k a week, every week you wait to have it done right.
I know it’s hard to justify at the time but in many cases the right choice is to get it done right early, ESPECIALLY for executives (who are losing more than $1k/week every week they are out of work)!
So let’s go back to the title of this post: Are you an executive resume writer? Most likely you aren’t – so why pretend you are one and waste valuable time in your job search?
