Recently Laid Off…How to Tune Up Your Resume

As someone along with the many thousands of others told to “hit the streets” and “take a hike Jack” (not that they actually said this but you get my drift), starting the job search to find gainful employment in this market can be daunting and downright depressing.

After four and a half years at the same employer, I found that I needed to have my resume taken in for a tune-up if not a major overhaul. There are a lot of services out there that can help you out, from monster.com to theladders.com, which have services that start at $140 for entry-level services and go all the way up to $400 for executive services. I found that a new up-and-coming service resumedonkey.com can offer all that value for a lower cost.

A little disclaimer is that I’m actually friends with the owner of resumedonkey, (Morgan Brown) but when I got the news that he launched this business a couple months ago I thought the timing couldn’t be better. Resumedonkey is a network of leading business professionals, HR veterans and professional writers who use their writing skills and HR experience to create stand-out resumes that get noticed. They offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee and their resume services start at a low price of $49.95. They offer this service at this price because they realize:

“If you’re here it’s probably for one of two reasons:

1. You don’t have a job and desperately need help finding one
2. You have a job that doesn’t pay you enough and are looking to climb the ladder

Either way, you probably don’t have a ton of cash to spend; but still recognize the importance of getting your foot in the door.”

Due to reason #1, I shot my resume over in their easy-to-use process and waited for my tune-up. What came back after a couple a days was 2 pages of constructive criticism on how to optimize my resume. It broke down everything possible from the font, layout, use of bullets, format, company descriptions, contact information, social media elements and additional comments. And that didn’t even get into the content of the resume yet.  They then broke down the content, results, education and additional comments.

For the grand finale, there were overall general impressions and final thoughts of my resume. I didn’t know that a resume could be deconstructed so thoroughly. I almost wish we sent all these CDO and CMO contracts to resumedonkey to deconstruct years ago so maybe we wouldn’t be in this national financial mess, but I digress. Needless to say I was very impressed. As a free gift Resumedonkey also included a sample resume template  that has been reviewed and approved by recruiters that I could use.  The home page also offers some value added job hunting news from getting creative to making the most of being unemployed.

There are also three other resume services they provide besides the $49.95 Resume Review. There is the Resume Express Review for $69.95 which will review your resume and get it back to you in 48hrs. This is if you have a job interview coming up in the near term. Then there is the Resume Review with two rounds of edits for $64.95. This basically allows you to incorporate their edits and then resubmit to make sure you haven’t left out any tips or techniques.

Finally, if you have the feeling you are just helpless, the Resume Writing service for $179.95 may be for you. “Don’t know whether to use a chronological or functional resume?  This is the service for you.  We’ll take your work history and input from you to craft a resume you can be proud of.”  If you are a college student finishing up school and about to enter this ghastly job market, having a service at this cost is a huge benefit considering other sites charge 6 times as much.

After having my resume tune up, I feel more confident and rejuvenated to go out and kick rejection in the teeth.

If you are interested in any of resumedonkey’s resume services, tell them you heard about it from JKingsbury.