How To Evaluate The Top 10 Executive Resume Writing Services

Filed Under: Coffee Break, January 2020 Issue
There are a lot of misleading Top 10 Executive Resume Writing Services Lists out there on the internet.
How do I know? As humbly as I can say it, I am often listed on some of these Top 10 Executive Resume Writing Services Lists in 2020 and years prior to 2020 and I can tell which lists are legitimate and which are bogus. Not all top 10 Executive Resume Writing Services Lists are created equal.
Clearly, on the genuinely bonafide objective lists, like Forbes Top 100 Career Website and Heller Search Executive Resume Writing Services Recommendation Lists, I am honored to be included. Other top 10 Executive Resume Writing Services Lists in 2020 and earlier are simply piggybacking on the SEO traffic of established executive resume writing services who worked hard to achieve what they have in the SEO world, despite never having used our services. While it’s annoying, these companies have the right to write their list that subversively markets their own service.
This means that buyers of executive resume writing services must be aware and do their research.
How can executive job seekers check out if a top executive resume writing service is the real deal? First know that research on top 10 executive resume writing services in 2020 needs to be done differently than one has done in past years when hiring an executive resume writing services provider.
Frankly, it’s not as easy as it used to be. why? For a number of reasons, including:
• Asking for references doesn’t work anymore because the executive resume writing service provider can give you names and numbers of people who they paid to give positive references. Additionally, quality executive resume writing services don’t want to bug their clients with calls either every time someone wants to buy. These top-tier services often have so many referrals that they don’t need to give out names and numbers to acquire new clients and simply respect their clients’ privacy—even if it means they lose business.
• Online reviews aren’t as reliable as they once were since positive and negative reviews can be falsified to pump up or play down genuine and fake reviews.
• Many LinkedIn recommendations say it was a pleasure to work with an executive resume writing service, but when you click through to the person’s profile, they never made a job change. They are still in their same job they have been in for years  So ask yourself, do you want someone who is just nice to write your resume or someone who will actually be successful in helping you land a new job? In my humble opinion, it isn’t a good reflection of the service if client after client in the LinkedIn recommendations says the executive resume writing service was nice but when you click through to the client’s profile, they never landed a job working with that executive resume writing service.
• Many Top 10 Executive Resume Writing Services Lists are written by executive resume writing services who rank themselves in the list and have affiliate relationships with everyone else in the list. It’s hardly objective (especially if the affiliate relationship isn’t explicitly outlined on the web page). So these lists can often not be objectively reliable.
What’s an executive job seeker to do if these traditional ways of evaluating top executive resume writing services prior to 2020 aren’t reliable any longer? How can they tell what is reliable?
The only truly objective way to tell is to see if their clients have actually made job changes using the top executive resume writing service.
Where can you find out if an executive resume writing service’s client actually landed a job using their services?  You can find out if a client made a job change by clicking through to a client‘s profile of the client recommendations on the executive resume writing services owner’s LinkedIn profile.
This is one of the only objective ways left to be able to evaluate top 10 executive resume writing services in 2020.

Here is how you can check if the service has legitimately worked for other clients.

1. Go to the LinkedIn Profile of the owner of the top executive resume writing service.

2. Scroll down to the Recommendations Section of their Profile.
3. Peruse through the LinkedIn Profile Recommendations looking for ones that seem like clients and mention writing career documents (resume, LinkedIn profile, etc.).
4.  Look at the date of the LinkedIn recommendation.
5. Then click through to the LinkedIn profile of the person giving the recommendation. Look if they made a job change a few months before or after this date of the recommendation.

Occasionally, clients hire top executive resume writing services to be proactive and have no intention to do a job change. Or they do a job search only to realize they have a good situation where they are and they stay…again, not doing a job change. But this is infrequent.  Most clients hire top executive resume writing services to do a job change. So the majority of the LinkedIn recommendations of the owner of the executive resume writing service should show clients making job changes if they are truly effective for their clients and worth your investment.

Looking for job changes in client LinkedIn Profiles is one of the only reliable ways to evaluate top executive resume writing services in 2020 and the above information should be invaluable to show you how to do that.

Lisa Rangel, founder and managing director of https://chameleonresumes.com/ (a Forbes Top 100 Career Website), is a Certified Professional Resume Writer, Job Landing Consultant & 13-year Recruiter. Lisa is also a paid moderator for LinkedIn’s Premium Career Group.