It’s good to find a fresh voice online that gives you useful advice, slaps you around a little (we all need it sometimes), entertains you, and leaves you feeling like you just learned something most people don’t know.
Check out 2 Great New Ways to Get a Kick-Butt Resume by Mark Bartz. Mark writes resumes for a living, in a special niche: medical and pharmaceutical sales — period. Mark knows the good side of the resume biz, and he knows the dark side, too. (There are resumes, and there are resumes…) If you’re going to hire a resume writer, this is what you need to know. And you’ll have fun reading it on Mark’s blog, What The Heck Do I Do?
.
Nick,
With all due respect, I think you neglected to do your homework on this one. To start with, Mark isn’t saying anything new about resume writing strategy that hasn’t been said before by many writers, but on top of that, his arguement for selecting a writer with certain certifications over others is a weak one.
The ACRW is a relatively new certification taught by two of the industry’s leaders. It is an excellent program and a great way for new writers to learn the craft and for seasoned writers to review techniques, but I’m sure that even its founders would admit that there are dozens of excellent writers who have not gone through their program (perhaps because they acquired their skills years before this training program was put in place).
The NCRW is another excellent credential, but so is the CERW. And there are a lot of great writers that have none of these credentials.
Good writers have the ability to take a lot of information about a candidate and synthesize it into a meaningful message of value. Period. Who cares how they acquired those skills? The point is they can often help market a job seeker.