With competition in the Job Search market increasing, and job seekers wanting to secure a good position in a suitable time scale, the demand for a Professional CV Writing Service has increased.
But, when price differentials between the UK CV Writers and those in North America or Europe are compared, what are many Job Seekers actually buying?
CV Services
There are three basic forms of CV Writing Service:
- CV Typing: former or existing secretaries and competent typists who take a set of often faxed hand written notes and combine them with a downloaded CV Template into a typed CV. These services most often offer printed paper format CV’s as optional extras. Expect to pay around £30 or less
Professional CV Writers: there are a growing number of Professional CV Writers in the UK. But, unlike North America where there are three competing bodies in CV writing alone which accredit Professional Resume Writers through testing, there is presently no such body in the UK. Most therefore tend to be creative writers or copy writers who have entered the employment market place as another place in which to use their skills. Expect to pay £50 and above
Employment Professionals: many employment professionals, from either a recruitment, Human Resources or employment background, provide CV Writing Services. This is the fastest expanding part of the market, although the largest number of providers are still CV Typists. Prices start from £75 and upwards, but still low compared to similarly skilled North American providers which start from $150
There are also a large number of part time providers who use the newly evolving Contract and bidding service websites to provide occasional CV Writing and additional income. But all services are charged up front, as the service is factually orientated creative communications.
What CV Writing Service?
With the diverse number of services, the question is: what do they provide, and why the price differential?
The market is still dominated by singular operators, often home based, over the three largest company based providers. The internet driven demands of the job seekers means that most UK CV Writing Services are orientated around:
- Taking your career history
- Interviewing you for 30mins or more to understand what you want to do next
- Creating in 24hours or less a draft CV
This approach panders to the Job Board orientated modern employment market, where by recently redundant or unemployed job seekers wish to gain work as quickly as possible.
CV Writing Tips
But, in a recent experiment, an employment professional body took 20 job seekers to find the affect of CV Writing. 10 were given a new Professional CV, while 10 were trained in how best to apply for jobs, using their existing CV.
The results showed that both groups did equally as well, but that the affect for either group was multiplied five fold when both aspects were combined.
Hence, if all you are shopping for is a Rewritten CV, expect your job seeking results to improve, but probably not as dramatically as you may wish.
Professional CV Writing Service
If you look at the headline, it should be easy to understand the level of expertise you will be engaging with.
After taking away a profit margin, and overhead costs of one third, plus the minimum three hours time required to take your career history and place it into a standard CV format, you can see that any service charging £30 or less will be employing people on UK minimum wage. If that is the skills level you are happy with, then at least you are now aware of the choice you are making the results should expect.
To engage a full time CV writer or Employment professional, expect to pay around £50 for a two page Professional CV. When taken into account with the results of the recent study, ask to speak to the actual person who will be writing your CV so that you know you will be happy with the engagement.
If you want a Professional CV Writing Service, then look for CV Services which provide additional information and guidance to you as a job seeker. Worry less about free rewrites and the quality of the paper printouts, and focus more about how they help you with guides and advice on how best to use your new Professional CV in getting the job you want.
Good Luck!