What Are Good Traits In Best Executive Resume Writers?
Beware hiring an executive resume writing amateur. An exceptional executive resume writer is a strategic partner offering extensive experience writing executive resumes that unearth value and convert career stories into compelling executive resumes that win interviews with major Fortune 50/100 corporations.
“A professional executive resume writer writes full-time and daily. Her words elicit a visceral reader (recruiter and/or executive decision-maker) response.”
In my 21 years’ executive resume writing service experience, I continually have been faced with and resurrected executive resumes for clients who previously worked with subpar resume writers on this crucial career story. Through my journalistic eye, passion for writing, and by employing state-of-the-art value proposition strategies, I have helped hundreds of executives find their voice and tell their unique value story.
My imaginative and deep-dive approach to content design, development and delivery has attracted multiple awards, including Marketing Innovator of the Year, speaking engagements and representation in global publications such as Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fox Business and TIME.
What makes a best executive resume writer one of the best?
Best executive resume writers invest in perfecting their executive resume writing craft to offer the best executive resume writing services possible to their executive clients: from executive resumes, to executive biographies, LinkedIn profile development, and executive job search coaching. Executive resume writers maintain memberships with industry-leading professional resume writing associations. I maintain membership in Career Directors International, serving on the Credentialing Committee and as a judge for the Toast of the Resume Industry awards for resume strategy excellence.
I’ll offer what I believe are best executive resume writing service traits, to help you partner with a professional executive resume writer, and perhaps this list will help you more easily identify your best-fit writing service.
Best Executive Resume Writing Services …
1. Write resumes full-time and are owned by a ‘writer.’ Though I intuitively weave interview prep and career coaching into the resume process, my primary niche (and business bread and butter) is executive resume writing. I spend an inordinate number of hours peering at Word documents on my MacBook Pro, unscrambling word stories from 25-page executive preparation worksheet puzzles and shaping elegant and powerful executive career stories.
It just so happens my bachelor’s degree is in writing, with a journalism emphasis, but that isn’t necessary to be a good resume writer. The point is, a writer WRITES, and she not only has a knack for writing, for the English language and for evoking emotion with her language skills, but also practices and hones her abilities daily.
2. Are scientific in their approach. The executive resume writer analyzes your unique situation, performs extensive research through an interactive question-and-answer process and assesses the results. She then experiments with a blend of colorful, yet pragmatic and professional words, formats and strategies until she arrives at an organic resume chemistry. Her word strategy will elicit emotional responses from the targeted readers (aka, people who have an influence in hiring you!).
Resume writers are trained and experienced in content and strategy development. They are centered on perfecting stories that grab – and maintain – attention.
Ask any successful resume writer, and she’ll tell you her work has never been shunned by an interested decision-maker because it was one line, one bullet point or one page longer than the self-appointed experts’ assertions. Her executive resume samples are replete with hard-working, ROI-generating stories.
3. Are not solely focused on keywords and executive resume length and do not cater their writing (just) to recruiter preferences. Keywords, intuitively woven into the resume are vital, particularly for job-board and corporate career website ATS systems and human eyes initially scanning your document.
However, emphasizing mass distribution and scanning tactics in your career search is career limiting. Propel your search through targeted, strategic activities aimed at hiring decision makers. Think networking, LinkedIn, social media and company research to garner attention.
As well, remember, the odds of a conversation with a recruiter landing you a job are about .0035%. Moreover, their requirements are focused primarily on employer wishes and ‘not’ your needs!
Employers employ executive recruiters (job seeking candidates do not employ recruiters); as such, recruiters’ desires to quickly shorten their fat stack of executive resumes to a manageable bite size means they seek to weed you out versus retaining your resume. It’s a pain management technique and certainly makes good sense for the recruiter.
4. Serve as your marketing agent. While ardent in creating a career marketing message that is steeped in value and in harmony with the prevailing preferences, a good executive resume writer understands that career marketing is JUST that, marketing, and it both bends, and breaks traditional writing rules, and leaves some prevailing opinions in the dust.
To this end, a good executive resume writing service focuses energies on what is in YOUR best interest to market you, even when this means breaking recruiters’ resume rules. Moreover, they also help you with adjusted resume versions, aimed at recruiter and other gatekeeper needs, to ensure your arsenal is fully equipped for all scenarios.
5. Value learning. For each executive resume writer, continuing education will be defined differently. For me, continuing education involves professional organization membership and active contribution on committees and boards. Many of us also have earned resume-writing-specific certifications. Find an executive resume writing service that clearly cares enough to not only stay current on job search and resume trends, but also aspires to better themselves, on YOUR behalf. They are never fully satisfied with the results of their last resume project, and always desire to grow and stretch.
6. Eschew the idea of resume ‘refreshes and updates,’ when what you really need is a newly transformed career positioning document. The executive resume writer knows that resumes are tailored strategies and not impulsively written career obituaries that will repel, versus attract, your target opportunity.
As Dawn Bugni, a career colleague and Master Resume Writer puts it, “Technology, approaches, styles, presentations and personal goals evolve rapidly in career management. You’ll want the most up-to-date career marketing documents touting your skills. Advertising campaigns refresh regularly; so should the marketing strategy for your most important product, your skill set.”
7. Guide executive careerists through ‘grinding’ processes that focus on executive image consulting and personal branding. A deep-level process whereby I assign clients intellectually rigorous homework and collaboration is one of the main draws that attracts new clients to my doorstep. They want someone that not only is willing to delve in to get to know them, but also realizes that in order to do so requires a two-way, in-depth conversation both in writing and on the phone.
There is no way around the invigorating processes. These executive resume writing processes prove out to be a winning strategy in executives’ long-term goals.
8. Are clear about their ideal clients. As Allison Rapp said in her article, “Do You Really Need an Ideal Client?”, “When you are clear about your clients, you shine like a beacon to them,” and, “You resonate with the deepest part of their being.” My intention for each engagement is a thoroughly individualized approach, contingent upon welcoming clients who exhibit a durable trust in my abilities. I also prefer a genuine kinship with that executive’s culture and goals that not only will sustain, but will also buoy the relationship to actionable success.
9. Have worked deeply with executives, in job search and in a corporate work place setting. I offer both. For the past 21 years, I’ve collaborated deeply and daily with executives engaged in executive resume writing strategy and job search. Prior to that, I worked 10+ years, several as the right-hand to the CEO of a multibillion-dollar, Midwest service organization where I learned executive project management, communications and gravitas across a complexity of leadership silos.
It is a disservice to executives to be taught that only former recruiters-turned-resume-writers are qualified to author their executive resume stories. In fact, I’d beg strongly to differ in that someone who has been elbow-to-elbow with the Chief Executive of a billion-dollar+ organization may be better equipped to understand an executive’s mindset and ROI drive.
10. Partner with and edify their intellectual capital in collaboration with recruiters. Extending on #9, a serious-minded executive resume writer has accrued relationships over the years with high-performing executive recruiters. In my 21 years, I’ve not only invested in face-to-face collaborations with executive recruiters from a number of sectors, I’ve also referred qualified candidates to recruiters who went on to land long-term roles. In sum, I understand what recruiters need.
Moreover, I’ve written a series of must-ask interview questions articles featuring executive recruiter insights over at Glassdoor for Employers blog. This in-depth investigation into what executive recruiters seek in regard to top candidates has been particularly beneficial in my executive resume writing practice.
11. Specialize in writing for executives at the VP and C-level. While some writers claim it is imperative to seek someone out who specializes in your specific industry niche; e.g., finance, or law or marketing, I believe this may be limiting.
You risk hiring someone who repeatedly recaps your story from a narrow vantage point, repeating industry catch-phrases and other industry-leaning language. In fact, by hiring an executive resume writer, you already have chosen someone who has refined their writing niche into a narrow field–resume writing–amid hundreds of other writing trades (digital marketing, technical writing, reporting, corporate communications, proposal writing, novel writing, et al).
They not only have chosen to sharpen their saw in the niche area of career storytelling, but they have drilled down even further to work exclusively with senior executives. So, rather than nitpicking your executive resume writer credentials by industry-specific experience; enable them instead to cross-pollinate language from one industry (finance) into the next (marketing) to provide the winning nectar that honeys the ears of the diverse hiring board.
12. Focus in on executive resume writing strategy + career storytelling to ensure you have a refined executive personal brand. Going full circle to point #1, an executive resume writer is ultra-centered on your executive resume strategy versus getting bogged down in the complexities of the job search preceding or following the portfolio development. Just like you need a specialist to handle certain aspects of your home building project; from brick layers to HVAC specialists to carpenters to plumbers, and many more, you will likely need several experts to help you navigate your full-scale executive search.
Identifying the areas you are comfortable doing it yourself (DIY) and those for which you desire hands-on consultation and collaboration, will determine which experts you hire.
While some in my industry would suggest you need to engage a one-stop shop to fulfill your needs, I would disagree and instead encourage you to consider the value of hiring highly networked and experienced experts who are laser focused on their specific areas of specialty. After your executive resume portfolio is complete, the executive resume storyteller can then connect you to the next phase of your career search process. This is more effective than rattling their attentions by constantly shifting their focus from writing to job search strategies and back again.
The really good, serious-minded executive resume strategists have built a solid network to whom they can confidently refer their clients for the next phase of their search.
13. Surprise you. As with the orange in this blog’s picture, you are surprised to see the blue orange peel, but more than likely that surprise is pleasing and delightful. Similarly, an executive resume strategist worth their salt will enable a few delightful surprises along the path of building your personally branded story.
Bottom Line Regarding Executive Resume Writing Services Best Traits
While trusting your instincts is generally a good rule of thumb, you may also need to get uncomfortable when hiring your senior executive resume partner. The internet has spawned a plethora of resume writing experts in the past few years, many who gain notoriety by espousing unfounded, career-limiting rules.
Instead, do your due diligence, research and partner with a true executive resume strategist and passionate writer who will harness the words of your career into a vigorous, compelling executive resume story that provides the career gains you deserve!
Executive Resume Writing Services
Dip your toes in the water with my low-cost resume starter kit. Email me for more information at jacqui@careertrend.net, or call 903.523.5952.
Also, view our executive resume samples for senior executives
I am one of only 50 master resume writers and have crafted more than 1,500 career stories that put “your value into words.” My bachelor’s degree in writing/journalism allows me to apply a journalist’s eye to your career.