In today's competitive marketplace, you will find some resume writing firms offering guarantees for the products they deliver. How do these guarantees work, you ask? They typically commit the resume company to reworking the product if the client has not earned an interview in a certain amount of time, say 30 or 45 days.



OK. Sounds nice, right?

But are you guaranteed a better resume as a result? Not necessarily. And this may have absolutely nothing to do with the level of expertise the writer holds or the quality of the document they produced.

Is it a bad thing?

Resume guarantees have some pros and some cons. For example, on the pro side, they tend to build the confidence the job seeker may have in the resume writer. Resume guarantees can also be a strong marketing tool to drive customers to a particular firm. However, many resume writers that also provide services to help job seekers in their job search refuse to offer a guarantee. They do so for several reasons; but the main reason is that the number of days in the guarantee sets a false expectation with the job seeker regarding how fast they should be able to get a job.

Just a Tool

Remember, the resume is just a tool. If a writer prepares a great resume for a job seeker, who then simply posts it on one site and waits for something to happen, how does this gauge the resume's quality? It really doesn't! With a guarantee, this particular job seeker will then be calling the resume writer after a few weeks to complain that they have not had any activity, they are disappointed, and that they want the resume revised.

If this job seeker sounds like you, watch out! You may very well be asking the resume writer to make unnecessary changes to well-written document, all because you did not have the proper expectations going into the process.

Look, there is no hard-and-fast rule when preparing a resume. It really is more art than science. It really does depend on the type of position you are pursuing, the depth and breadth of experience you have, the quality of accomplishments, and many other facets. Therefore, the results cannot be quantified into number of days = a certain amount of success.

Your focus instead should be on finding a quality writer and not on the cheap thrill. Did your writer capture your career progression and accomplishments well? Do you have a clear target? Can you back up everything stated on the resume?

If the answer is “yes,” then the resume, along with your top-notch job search strategy, should do what it is intended to do: secure you interviews.

For those of you who have come across my articles before, by now, you will see that I seem to have a mantra..."proper expectation...proper expectations..." That's because so much comes down to that. Everyone thinks they have the answer, that they are the exception, that if they just buy this book or that system, but it all really comes down to common-sense principles leveraged with a keen understanding of your market, which all lead to, yep, you guessed it, proper expectations!