What Every Job Seeker Needs to Know

By Stephen Van Vreede

Resume writing is not a standardized industry. Although some states are considering legislation to require licensing, so far, the industry has been open to operate without government regulation.

THAT IS GREAT NEWS!

And not just for the resume writer, but for the job seeker as well.

Why, you might ask? Well, it means that the field is wide open to choose from, that it is currently being standardized by professional associations run by none-other-than résumé professionals (and not by government bureaucrats), and that prices are set based on market demand and not on government restrictions.

If you think resumes are expensive now, just wait until the government starts playing around with the industry! Not to mention the fact that the number of writers out there will dwindle down to where job seekers primarily only have large-scale firms to choose from.

Of course, the lack of regulation also means that job seekers can get swindled if they aren't careful in picking out their writer. But armed with the info from the Real Skinny on Professionally Written Resumes guide, and some basic commonsense, seekers should have no problem finding a reputable firm.

This guide is broken into two sections: (1) for those that are either still in the searching stage, just trying to find a service to work with, and (2) for those that have already purchased a service and aren't feeling too sure about the product they received. Our Common Resume Misnomers section is meant to help sort through the vast amount of misinformation and confusion that is out there, and provide job seekers with a solid understanding of how they should be weighing their resume.

So who am I anyway? Why do I think my advice is so valuable?

My name is Stephen Van Vreede. My company is called No Stone Unturned, and I have been in the career consulting business since 2002 with 8 years of hiring experience prior to that. You can check out my website at http://www.nostoneunturnedllc.com

The short story is that I have a B.S. degree in Business Administration & Finance from the University of Maryland and an MBA in Marketing from Villanova University. I am a certified professional résumé writer (CPRW) and a member of the Professional Association of Résumé Writers and Career Coaches (PARW/CC). As I mentioned, I paid my dues in the corporate world eventually running a large-scale call center for a major truck rental company, and I have spent the past 6 years with No Stone Unturned, assisting job seekers in achieving their goals.

I know that my products will work for you because they are based on commonsense principles leveraged with good, solid expertise and knowledge of the job search process. After working with countless job seekers, I have become more and more convinced that most of them do not properly prepare for a job search and rely way too much on online sites and trendy articles to tell them what to do. Thus, they waste a lot of time, money, and energy.

\\\