Should I use a CV writing company?

There is much mutual help within these forums in getting English ‘correct’ but there are times when enquirers need to have things just right, for example in a cv for a job application and maybe time is of the essence. Is it then worth using a commercial cv writing company and how does one find one? How does one know they are any good and will be sensitive to the difference in culture of a non-native English speaker? There are no easy answers of course but with careful searching on the internet one can steer away from potentially less suitable (for EFL speakers) organisations. For fresh graduates in the UK Prospects is a particularly good website for all things associated with jobs and further study and the consultants that work on the Prospects Service are all working in university Careers Services, have regular contact with industry, and know what they are doing when it comes to writing cvs and what employers are looking for. It is help from this type of individual that you should try to obtain if possible. I will return to this point in a minute.

A second point is that you should ALWAYS get somebody else to have a look at your CV for a second opinion. Ideally that someone else should be older than yourself and have worked a while AND BE A NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER. Particularly useful are people who have been involved in the appointment of other staff even if they work in a totally different field to the area you are aiming at.

Professional CV writing services can be very good but you have to be wary. Why is someone having a 'special offer'? Why does the site look very glitzy and slick? Are you a glitzy & slick individual or do you have hidden depths and qualities which a good employer will covert and will these come through in a CV written for you by such an organisation?

Bear in mind my first point above - the person helping with your CV really needs to be in touch with employers and for the recent graduate in particular someone who has that university-employer link can be really useful. So how do you find them? It is essentially the case of putting combinations of relevant/focussed search terms into a search engine. Use combinations of such terms as cv, curriculum vitae, cv advice service, English, undergraduate, graduate, industry, commerce, university, academic etc. For example, "cv advice service" + "English" put into Google takes you with two clicks to (URL removed), a specialist company who in particular focuses in helping people produce cvs in English where this is not their first language and has industrial and university connections.

A little careful research on the internet in the manner described above will reveal that there are several smaller companies who perhaps don't advertise so widely but have similar expertise. Generally they can offer much more of an individual service because they don't have hundreds of clients and are able to give you much more personal attention ......and they don't necessarily have to be so expensive. Think about it logically, they have to charge competitive rates for similar types of customer. Where you see really high prices, the companies are usually aiming at customers who are some way down the line on their career pathways.

Having found a potentially suitable organisation then it is a case of simply enquiring .....and going on you 'gut reaction' to any response that you receive.


Finally in answer to the question posed, only you can decide but if that job is really important to you, then a little professional help might not come amiss.

University-based Student Advisor