Spent $400 on a resume writing service and got zero callbacks for 3 months

I was job hunting after my dental office closed down last spring. My old resume was just a list of duties so I paid a service to fix it up. They made it look all fancy and used big words. But after 3 months of nothing I showed it to a friend in HR. She said it was full of buzzwords and nothing actually told employers what I did. I redid it myself in one weekend and got an interview the next week. Has anyone else had better luck with those expensive resume services or am I just salty?

2 comments

2 Comments

kelly.emma4d ago

You're actually probably salty but also not wrong. Those services love to throw around "results-driven professional" and "synergistic approach" but HR folks see right through that stuff. Did your friend mention what specifically they wanted to see that the service missed?

christopher_craig4d ago

Exactly... and I think it goes deeper than just the buzzwords. My friend said the service completely missed the "show don't tell" part of a good resume. Like, instead of saying "improved team efficiency" they wanted actual numbers or a specific project outcome. The services just polish up the fluff without digging into what someone actually accomplished. And that's the part HR people actually scan for... they've seen "strong communicator" a million times but "led a team that cut production delays by 30% in 6 months" actually sticks. So the resume ends up looking really generic instead of telling a story about real results.