Is it worth it to pay someone to write your resume & coverletter

[lifein08]

hello how are you

[morecoffeepls, BSN, RN]

"No. There are plenty of free online resume guides and templates that allow you to write your own great resume for free. No need to pay anyone. Have friends and family review your resume for spelling and grammer and ask someone you know in management to review it and give you a professional opinion."

* grammar

Good advice, though.

[Double-Helix, BSN, RN]

* grammar

Good advice, though.

I'll never understand why some people read these threads and post simply to correct a spelling mistake. Perhaps you should offer your services reviewing resumes, where spelling and grammAr are actually important.

[turnforthenurse, MSN, NP]

My school had a career center where they would look at our resumes, critique them and help tweak them to make them better. They also conducted mock interviews. Best of all, it was free! But you had to be currently enrolled. Alumni no longer got that privilege...

I also suggest Googling new grad/entry-level RN resumes to see examples and templates. As another user suggested, you can create a great resume with those examples. Good luck!

[netglow, ASN, RN]

Yes, there are literally tons of resources. No need to waste your money. I would not really put all your trust in your college for career advice, LOL!!! If it's free let them review it, I guess.

[linearthinker, DNP, RN]

It depends on the job you are seeking. If you are looking for a staff nurse position, it is probably unnecessary. If you are looking for a professional position as an APN, anything in academia, or something in the corporate world, I'd advise you to do it.

My husband's firm hires a few new associates every year, about 4-6 spots for which they get over 1,000 resumes. They literally filter them out by tossing unprofessional resumes without reading the content. Right or wrong, their thinking is if the candidate doesn't care enough about the job to invest a little money in a professional resume after spending ~$150k to go to Law School, they aren't going to be dedicated enough to put in the ~100 hour week as a first year associate. It would not shock me if there are other people in business or academia who expect to see professionally prepared CVs/resumes and cringe when they get something that was clearly not.

However, I don't think the average hospital really cares about your resume other than as a tool to identify your previous experience. When I was working with the hiring committee, all we did was look for the BSN (sorry, contentious issue I know, but we required it) and made sure they already had critical care experience (we didn't hire into critical care without previous cc. exp at our place), preferably in a large teaching hospital or other level one tertiary care, etc. Unless you used some ridiculous font or colored paper, we didn't really notice the rest.

So, I would take all the advice of the people who said learn how to do a good one and then do it yourself at no cost. If after a time other people have been hired and you have not, then I might consider having it redone professionally. I wouldn't do that out of the gate for an ordinary staff nursing position.

ETA: to be honest, I don't think any of the nurse recruiters or managers I have known would be savvy to the difference anyway, assuming htere are no glaring errors on either.

[Despareux]

I plan on using my school's resources, my own personal resources, and a professional resource for my resume and cover letter. Then I will choose (with some help) which one is more effective.

[pitaya]

My boyfriend's mom paid someone hundreds of dollars to write her resume.

I looked at it and it looked no better than something I could have come up with on my own. I was kind of irritated that she din't pay me to do it.

But really, the thing is, she had to write down all of the information in the first place to give it to the resume creator so they'd know what to put on there. My theory is, why not just write down all that information in a nice resume template and save hundreds of dollars?