Having a written resume doesn't mean you are ready for a job search. And we are talking not about things you have to know before trying to find a job. We are rather talking about resume itself. Most job seekers believe if they like their own resume it automatically means that hiring authorities would love it too. Wrong. They don't care how you feel about your own resume and it is most likely they will use different evaluation techniques when reviewing your resume. The question comes then how to know whether your resume is okay or you should still work on it in order to make it look professional? Is there a chance to find an objective critique of your own resume and where to find it? These questions we are going to address in this article.
Where to Get an Objective Feedback On Your Resume
Usually, family and friends become the first source of feedback. The problem with such an approach is that your family members probably aren't experts in the field you wish to work in. That means they will unlikely have a professional eye like most of the hiring authorities reviewing your resume. If you have given your CV to one of your colleagues there is always a risk that he/she may tell someone else that you are looking for a new job (which is not good in terms of your perspective of leaving the company you are working for now). On the other hand, family members as well as friends (if they care about you and understand the purpose of it all) will be honest and single out things that you might have missed when compiling your resume. Another option is to order free evaluation at one of the resume writing services.
There are a lot of online resume writing companies that offer to review and provide some recommendations for your resume for free. You can easily find them in google if you enter 'resume writing services' in the search tab. The advantage of such approach is that you will likely get the feedback pretty fast. The comments will not be extensive but they might give you the idea which direction you should be going when polishing up your CV. When turning to resume writing services keep in mind that their feedback partly can be directed at luring you to use their services.
Lastly, you can ask a recruiter to help you edit your resume by inquiring about his/her critique. This is relevant only if you have applied to a job opening that was posted by a recruiting firm. In this case, a recruiter can give you some really handy tips on how you can create a very targeted resume. Besides, recruiters know all of the buzzwords as well as what is relevant on this or that job opening. The downsides of this source of feedback is that it can take a long time while recruiters get back to you with the critique. Also, your resume will be tailored to just one job which means you can't apply with it to various job openings. Well, you can but it won't be very effective.
