People often ask my opinion on when to use professional resume writing services over the DIY approach. At the risk of sounding evasive, my response is always, “It depends,” because the individual and the circumstances often drive the decision to write it yourself or use a professional service.

Professional resume services don’t come cheap, so most job hunters go the DIY route, but I advise friends to consider spending money on a professional service when their situation resembles one of the following.

Rambling Writer:

* A tome today is sure to be recycled into tomorrow’s newspaper. Many persons cannot summarize their activities and accomplishments into clear and concise statements and insist on listing the minutia of everything they ever did in their entire life.

Fast Tracker:

* While you could most likely sell yourself to a lateral position, or the next level, a professional could help highlight your readiness when targeting more senior roles where you otherwise might not be considered.

Career Switcher:

* A thirty year CPA veteran looking to switch professions may need guidance in downplaying the degree of accounting concentration and bringing out the transferable skills he has to offer, and also in writing a cover letter accentuating the positives of the career move.

Technical Guru:

* Persons in highly specialized professions often benefit from having a professional writer turn technical jargon, which no one but the writer typically understands, into terms that are recognizable and understandable by others.

“Successfully analyzed, designed, configured, developed, tested, and implemented the RDBMS Hexagram system in our Center of Excellence Department on a UNIX-based platform, conforming to SQL-92 and ADO.NET standards, using the SSADM method, resulting in yada, yada, yada.”

Uh, okay. Remember, the first place your resume lands is usually on a recruiter’s desk; that screener is not a database guru…s/he is a human resources professional charged with short listing hundreds of resumes to a mere few. In addition to highlighting technical skills, your resume must also convey good communication skills – you will have the opportunity to have the technical discussion with the right people, but you have to get there first.

Returning Worker:

* Professional resume services can help persons who have been out of work for a while present employment gaps in salable terms (e.g., stay-at-home child raiser).

Lifer:

* Workers who have neither updated their resumes nor gone on interviews since their first day of employment some twenty years ago may need a writing coach.

Baby Boomer:

* Fifty is still young, but try finding a thirty-something hiring manager who subscribes to that belief. Professional services can help bring out little things on senior resumes that offset age (e.g., marathon runner).

Dead Ender:

* Finally, if you did go the DIY route and are not landing interviews, maybe it is time to have a paid professional critique your resume. Most of us are too close to ourselves and our work to read our resumes through the eyes of a detached recruiter or hiring manager. We all think we stand out, and I know this may come as a shock to some, but the reality is that we aren’t always perceived in that same light by others.

For more information on Dennis Abenanty, see his profile on Linked In:http://www.linkedin.com/in/dennisabenanty

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