If I started again: How to Become A Resume Writer
Have you been thinking about becoming a resume writer, but you’re not sure where to start?
Are you overwhelmed with the information you have found online?
Do you find many sources of information on resume writing conflicting?
You are not alone!
And I was once there myself. I shudder now when I think back to the thousands of dollars I wasted on platform memberships and other things that weren’t necessary. They weren’t even a nice to have!
Once you know what a resume writer does, here are some of the things I run through when I get asked the question, “how do I become a resume writer? I don’t know where to start/if I’m good enough/if I’ll succeed.” If I had to start again, this is where I would begin:
Your 10 things
I always ask new resume writers to write down at least 10 things they have expert knowledge or lived experience of.
This could be related to your previous career or industry.
You may have been born overseas and have expert knowledge of emigrating to Australia and finding a job, home, community and starting a new life.
You might have experience changing careers, defence, nursing, or returning to work after an accident, trauma or raising a family.
What I’m trying to say is, your experience has immense value in this industry and it’s a great place to start to figure out what you care about and create a niche around that.
Your Ideal Client
What kinds of people do you want to help? Who is your ideal client?
Writing down your 10 things will help you with this.
For me, I had a keen interest and lived experience of defence life and I’m a mum of 4 with lots of career changes.
I connect very well with job seekers that sit in that sphere and they are far more comfortable talking to me because of my knowledge in that area.
The Client Experience
What experience do you want the client to have with you?
By starting with the end in mind you can reverse engineer a lot of the steps required to get there and map out your client lifecycle.
Steps might include finding clients, initial enquiry, payment, onboarding, extracting information, service delivery, feedback, finalising, after sales service and asking for referrals.
And when you have these steps clear and working like clockwork, you can automate many of them and that saves you lots of time so you can grow your business without burning yourself out.
Understand Intent
What are people looking for?
It might seem obvious, but a lot of resume writers miss this step.
Resume writers forget why they are writing a resume because they become overwhelmed with writing a great professional summary or the like.
But is that what the client wants or needs?
And what about the recruiter?
In the beginning I found a lot of information online about what you need to write within a resume to be successful at passing automated Application Tracking Systems (ATS). This may be where some of my money got wasted as I mentioned before 🤔.
So, I contacted recruiters directly, and asked their opinion.
90% of them didn’t even know what an ATS “resume scan” was - in fact, some of them probably thought I was out of my mind, as now I can see what I was asking probably didn’t make sense to them!
My point is - do your research and speak to the professionals in your niche who will be actually reading the resumes. That way, you can write with their intent in mind.
Learn. Lots.
There are plenty of courses online (trust me, I think I did them all in my first 2 years 😂).
Alison.com has free resume writing programs and lots of resources that are helpful in starting a business.
Sites like Indeed, Seek and others have advice on how to write a resume but again, bear in mind the intent behind these articles and how their experience informs what they write.
The Resume Academy® is also a wonderful place to start (shameless plug).
When you are part of a community like Resume Writers Australia, you have access to other resume writers who have been where you are now.
There is an immense amount of experience in the group and there is always someone around to offer advice and guidance. We’re a friendly bunch!
Just Start
Perhaps this should have been step 1!
Offer resume writing services.
You don’t need a formal qualification or for anyone else to say you are ready. When you start, you gain experience, you make mistakes, you learn, and you improve. And there is no fast-track for that.
One thing I wish I knew from the very beginning is that clients want to deal with a real person.
They aren’t interested in dealing with a computer or a company.
For a long time, I ran my business without a face. All my photos were stock images and the language I used was all ‘we’ and ‘us’ to give the impression of a bigger team.
When I was on my 3rd maternity leave with my son, Archie, I was working with a business consultant who pointed this all out to me. I started doing live videos on Facebook and Instagram, I used my photo in my social media posts and my image become synonymous with the brand. And I think I more easily communicated why I wanted to help the clients in my niche.
It was clear that I offered a one-on-one personalised service, and it wasn’t a resume mill. I suppose you could say I started to show up more authentically and the business just grew from there. In hindsight though, I had a couple of years’ experience which helped when I got to that point of growth in my business. (And I’d left my job, so I was no longer worried about my boss seeing it 🙊.)
Finally, congratulations on embarking on a new career path or adding to your skills and the services you offer your clients.
It’s not easy starting something new and if you are anything like the resume writers in the Resume Writers Australia community you are here to upskill, get validation, and do the right thing.
And I’m so excited to see where this path leads for you.
Vicki
