Frequently Asked Questions
1. What makes your Résumé Writing Service the best?
3. Can you explain the entire process from ordering through to the delivery of my résumé?
4. Explain how the qualifications of your writers stack up to the competition.
5. How long will it take to receive my résumé and how will I receive it?
6. What if I don’t have Microsoft Word?
7. Why shouldn’t I just use a template and write my résumé myself?
8. What if I want to update my résumé a few years down the road?
9. How do I know you won’t sell my information to anyone else?
1. What makes your Résumé Writing Service the best?
Unlike ALL the other Résumé Writing sites out there these days that litter the web with astronomical prices and generic clip art of models in business suits pretending to be important, we are proud to employ the only writers in the industry that consistently interview Fortune 500 Hiring Managers and Recruiters as part of maintaining certification credentials. Accordingly, it's from this unique position of privilege that we're constantly one step ahead of our competition when it comes to the latest trends in how a winning résumé should look and read (HINT: most college counselors don't have a clue).
2. "So just how is it,” you’re wondering, “that we can provide an equal (and usually better) quality product as our competitors at a price that literally amounts to around half of theirs?"
Simple. Because our founding writers actually spent years working for those other big résumé writing firms, only to realize how inefficiently their ownership was structured. To date, HalfPriceResumes.com is the only reputable résumé writing firm that is actually owned by each of its writers (i.e. no middlemen are lining their pockets with your hard-earned cash along the way).
3. Can you explain the entire process from ordering through to the delivery of my résumé?
Step 1: Select a Résumé Design Package
The process begins by selecting the specific product(s) you’d like to have us develop for you on our Services page.
Step 2: Complete the Résumé Content Submission Form™
After we collect contact and payment information from you, you will be directed to our Résumé Content Submission Form™. We have specially developed and tweaked this form to optimize our representation of you as a person, along with all your specific industry accomplishments.
Worried you don’t have any industry accomplishments yet? That’s alright, we can help you too. Simply fill in as many of the questions you can while being as descript as you can, and one of our writer’s will reference that information in developing your custom résumé.
Step 3: Receive Confirmation and Await 1st Draft of Résumé via Email
After you have electronically submitted the Résumé Content Submission Form™, you will receive an email verification within 48 hours that we have received your data and have begun writing your résumé. Please recognize, however, that providing a lack of information on the form may result in us having to contact you regarding the “holes” in your résumé. This will inevitably lead to a delay which could result in your résumé not being completed within the usual 3-day time span.
Finally, assuming you’ve filled out the Résumé Content
Submission Form thoroughly and we – therefore – inform you that
your résumé is on track for a timely delivery, you will receive
a first draft of your résumé as an attachment within an email.
You will then have 14 days to contact us with two rounds of reasonable revisions
so that we can get your résumé as close to the way you want
it as is practically possible.
4. Explain how the qualifications of your writers stack up to the competition.
Not only do our certified résumé writers hold four-year degrees in English from some of the world’s most respected universities, but we also only recruit the most accomplished Human Resource professionals that today’s market has to offer – ensuring that your résumé will always be finely tuned to target the exact skills for which potential employers are looking.
5. How long will it take to receive my résumé and how will I receive it?
Usually you’ll have a first draft of your résumé within 3 business days of placing your order. With Microsoft Word being such an overwhelming standard in word processing these days, it makes sense to most of our customers to have us email them the electronic version in Word format once we’ve completed it. This way you can take your own document to any local copy shop, choose the type of stationery YOU want, and get as many copies as you need for WAY cheaper than we could charge for the same services.
6. What if I don’t have Microsoft Word?
Don’t worry. We also send you an electronic copy of your résumé in Adobe PDF file format via the same email that contains the MS Word version. You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the file, but it is free for download at their website.
7. Why shouldn’t I just use a template and write my résumé myself?
We get this question all the time, and the answer is really quite simple: Because templates do nothing visually or verbally to make your résumé stand out from everyone else’s. While the templates built into your word processing program (or the 10,000 “bargain buys” you can find online) can generally be a good place to start in planning out the type of content your résumé should contain, employers have seen them all – trust us – and will likely end up trashing your résumé without ever glancing past your name. Everyone has different strengths (i.e. you’re probably not a Graphic Designer, Wordsmith, and/or HR Pro), so let us use our expertise to better highlight yours.
8. What if I want to update my résumé a few years down the road?
Another benefit of our Microsoft Word delivery format is that you have full control over adding and editing information on your résumé and/or cover letter. We’ve taken care of all the difficult formatting work, so updating either is usually just a matter of typing in your new information. However, if you get stuck along with way – or prefer to have your new information professionally worded by our staff – simply contact us at info@HalfPriceResumes.com. Attach an electronic copy of your current résumé, describe the extent of revisions you’ll likely need, and we’ll quickly get back to you with an always-fair price that’s proportionate to the amount of work you need done.
9. How do I know you won’t sell my information to anyone else?
Complete confidentiality is always of the utmost importance to us, and you can rest assured that we will NEVER disclose your private information to any third parties. Also, we realize that job searches often take place while you’re currently employed someplace else, and we would never take any unauthorized steps in contacting an employer – past or present – (or anyone who isn’t you for that matter) to discuss you or any confidential information relating to your career.
A Cover Letter is a letter that typically precedes a résumé when you’re planning on mailing your résumé to a potential employer or recruiter. The Cover Letter’s purpose is to establish a personal connection between you and your potential employer that a résumé alone typically can’t do. Unfortunately, most people don’t really know what to say in their Cover Letter or they aren’t sure what the person reading it might want to hear. Luckily, that’s what we specialize in and we’d be happy to write a Cover Letter that perfectly complements your résumé and significantly increases the chance that a potential employer will mark you as a candidate they’d like to sit down and meet.
11. Why should I pay for a traditional résumé when it really doesn’t matter how it looks anymore since most companies just scan them into a database and run keyword searches on them anyway?
This is a really good question, to which we have another really good answer. While it may be very true that a growing number of job boards and company websites are requesting that you upload them a copy of a text-only résumé, you are still always going to need a nicely executed “traditional” résumé. Why? Well, if a potential employer does locate your résumé online (which – by the way – is much more likely to happen with our keyword-enhanced Upload-able Résumé option), two things could happen.
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They will contact you and ask you to email them a formal résumé along with some more information about yourself (e.g. portfolio examples) that they simply can’t view on the job boards or company website. Employers use this test all the time because it quickly weeds out the millions of lightweights out there who brag about themselves on their job board profile but have nothing to back it up with. Additionally, this presents the perfect opportunity for you to impress them with a beautiful PDF version of your résumé that we automatically complete as part of every product package we sell.
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A potential employer will find you through an online search and contact you to come in for an interview. At this point, are you really going to attend an interview without leaving behind the best possible advertisement of yourself – a beautifully done, traditional résumé – when you leave? Or maybe you’re going to walk in with a text-only printout of the same thing you typed into the job board and expect to get hired on the spot for being so impressive?
With either of these two situations, we wish you luck in getting hired (because – unless you look like Angelina Jolie or have the personality of Robin Williams – you’re going to need it).
