10 Traits of a Best Executive Resume Writing Service / Top Executive Resume Writers

 

“Beware hiring an executive resume writing amateur. The best executive resume writers write every single day, with vigor and passion. Their experience trail is deep + wide. Their stories elicit a visceral reader response.”

In my 24 years’ executive resume writing experience, I continually have addressed and resurrected beleaguered executive resumes for clients who previously worked with subpar writers on this crucial career story.

Moreover, the dispassion displayed by some writers, who see the resume as a humble document comprised of repeatable jargon, is in stark contrast to the strategic artistry of a more passionate writer who uses the resume palette to reveal differentiating imagery to personally brand each client.

“What makes one an expert executive resume writer?”

I’ll offer what I believe are best executive resume writing traits, including those of the writer at the helm. If you are considering hiring and partnering with an expert executive resume writer, perhaps this list will help you more easily identify your right-fit writing service.

Top executive resume writers invest in perfecting their craft to offer optimal results: from expert-level executive resumes, to branded executive biographies,  SEO-friendly LinkedIn profile development, pitches, e-notes and trending executive job search consultation and/or referral services.   

Top Executive Resume Writing Services …

1. Write resumes full-time and are owned by a ‘writer,’ practicing their craft with passion.

Though I intuitively weave interview prep and career coaching into the resume development process, my primary niche (and business bread and butter) is resume writing. I spend innumerable hours untangling complexity to weave elegant and shapely career stories.

While my bachelor’s degree is in writing, with a journalism emphasis, holding that credential is not necessary to be a good resume writer. An effective resume writer WRITES, and she not only has a knack for writing, but also for the English language, evoking emotion with her language skills, practicing and honing her abilities daily.

2. Are scientific in their approach. 

Best executive resume writers analyze your unique situation, perform extensive research through an interactive question-and-answer process and assess the results.  They experiment with a blend of colorful, yet pragmatic and professional words, formats and strategies until arriving at an organic resume chemistry. Their word strategy elicits emotional responses from the targeted readers (aka, people who have an influence in hiring you!).

Executive Career Coach – Founder, Worthington Career Services, Janice Worthington, expressed the confusion and dismay created when careerists and job seekers solicit resume-writing expertise from resume writing nonprofessionals:

“I have spent a lifetime with disappointed job seekers
because their buddies (from recruiters and HR managers to senior execs and grandmas) wrote resumes with murky strategies.”

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, an expert 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 dismissing perceived resume rules. It is worth noting, however, that the chasm between recruiter and gatekeeper needs and what a marketing-savvy executive resume looks like has narrowed. This may be attributed in large part to social media’s personal branding trends, but also can be credited to the metamorphic tech advancements these past several years.

My colleague, Rosa Vargas, Master Resume Writer, and owner of Career Steering, said it best recently:

“It used to be that recruiters were turned off by elaborate designs, and job seekers worried about the ATS system when leveraging sophisticated designs. However, application tracking systems have evolved, and recruiters have responded extremely favorably to designs that pop–but not when design has been used arbitrarily.

In the same way that PowerPoint is utilized to create presentations that seal a major deal or simplify complex data, an executive resume should be crafted to influence. As such, design strategy–charts + logos + quotes + color–must be utilized to move the story forward or to make it easier for recruiters/ hiring authorities to grasp value.”

5. Value learning.

For each professional 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 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 executive career story.

The good executive resume writer knows that resumes are tailored strategies and not impulsively written career obituaries that will repel, versus attract, your target opportunity.

As Master Resume Writer, career colleague and owner of The Write Solution, Dawn Bugni,  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 mentally invigorating 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.

Executive Coach and CEO of Glacier Point Solutions, Donna Schilder sums it up so well, saying, “Trust the process: Your resume writer has a great process. They’ve done this successfully hundreds if not thousands of times.”

Through these processes, “Your writer will help articulate the value you already have,” continues Schilder.

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 collaborated deeply with executives, in job search and in a corporate workplace setting.

I offer both. For the past 24 years, I’ve collaborated deeply and daily with executives engaged in executive resume writing strategy and job search. Prior to that, I worked 11+ years, several of those years 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. During the past two decades, 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.

** BONUS **

11. Never Make Assumptions About What the Reader Knows

A strong resume storyteller will revolutionize your message to ensure it extols your value, versus burying it. A client recently related how during a recent conversation with her CEO that it “became so clear to me that I haven’t done myself justice and need this (resume development process) SO much in order to convey–with words–my strong and compelling leadership story. Once we do that, I also need to shift my attitude to more ‘telling my story’ and not assuming people just see it.”

Bottom Line Regarding Best Executive Resume Writing Services

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 resume writing expert who will harness the words of your career into a vigorous, compelling executive resume story that provides the career gains you deserve!

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Also, view our executive resume samples for senior executives

I am one of only 50 master-level expert executive resume writers — a top industry certification — 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.