Advancing Your Career at the Executive Level: How a Professional Resume Writer Can Be Your Secret Weapon

At the executive level you have a lengthy career history and many accomplishments to include on your resume, write about in a cover letter, and talk about in an interview. But here’s the thing—you’re not the only applicant for an executive position who has an impressive work history. Remember, you are marketing yourself to potential employers, and that means distinguishing yourself as a valuable candidate.

When applying for executive-level jobs, or trying to get the attention of executive recruiters, it becomes even more important to set yourself apart with a personal brand and a modern, professional resume format that catches the eye and effectively conveys the high points and relevant accomplishments of your career while demonstrating how your expertise is an excellent fit for the business you want to work for.

“But I’m a good writer,” you say. “And I have resumes that have worked for me in the past! So why is a resume writer an especially good investment for professionals at the executive level? I can do this myself, easily.”

Of course  you can—and there are plenty of sample resumes on our website and tips and advice on our blog to help you out if that’s the route you decide to take. But even if you are a talented writer, it can be tough to tease out salient details about yourself, essentially brag about your accomplishments, and then put them all together in a way that makes you stand out to recruiters and hiring managers. Plus, there’s the time commitment to consider. Resumes need to be tailored to individual positions and companies, and creating a master resume and then creating additional focused resumes can take up valuable time.

As you make the decision whether to use a professional resume writing service or to write your executive resume yourself, consider the following points.

Resumes at the Executive Level vs. Entry-Level Resumes

Entry-level and even mid-career resumes may often consist of bullet points listing skills and experiences, with some accomplishments scattered in. The format may be boring and standard, with no visuals and is probably a format found on a search for resume templates on the web. While not ideal for entry-level or mid-career jobs, it is more acceptable at these levels than it is at the executive level.

By contrast, your executive resume needs to be polished, and it needs to speak to your accomplishments directly. If you have an executive resume that does not directly mention achievements, a prospective employer is going to wonder just what you’ve been doing during all those years of experience you have listed out.

Sometimes, it can be tough to tease out your own accomplishments or to recognize what a recruiter or potential employer might see as a valuable accomplishment. Professional resume writers know how to identify such opportunities to make you stand out, especially those who take the time to get to know you, your career history, and your career goals like we do at Great Resumes Fast. Often, a professional resume writer may be able to tease out accomplishments and opportunities to improve your personal brand from what you have listed as just skills or previous job responsibilities.

Then there’s the fact that an executive resume needs to look like an executive resume. Gone are the days when every resume that shows up to a human resources department is going to look similar. As an executive, you need to stand out and you need to show that you’ve taken the time to create an exceptional resume—after all, a resume is a first impression and an example of how you present yourself. Don’t let yourself be ignored in the early stages of the hiring process just because your resume is boring—pay attention to your format and how it can encourage a hiring manager or recruiters to read more closely about your work experience, skill set, and overall value.

By hiring a professional resume writer, you are tapping into their knowledge about how to use certain formats effectively to best present the information that needs to be front and center to impress a potential employer. From creating simple visuals to highlight strengths to using graphs to show revenue and/or sales growth to utilizing white space to best guide the eyes to the most important information, a professional resume writer knows the tricks that can make your resume stand out from the pack. When you’re applying for an executive position, this is crucial to helping you land an interview and hopefully get that job offer you’ve been waiting for.

An Objective Perspective Is Incredibly Valuable

When you are writing a resume, there are certain jobs and experiences that are particularly important to you for various reasons. Or, maybe there are some that you just ignore because you don’t possibly see how they could be relevant to the executive position you are now applying for.

This is where an outside perspective from an experienced career professional can help you greatly improve your resume.

As I mentioned above, the resume writers at Great Resumes Fast take the time to have a conversation with you and really get to know your career history. In doing so, we are able to recognize experiences and achievements that you might only have a vague memory of or are so close to that you don’t fully understand their potential impact on your current job search.

From rewording information to including information you were planning to leave off—or leaving off irrelevant information you had been including—an objective professional can ensure that your executive resume is representing you well as an executive.

Friends and family can also provide objective advice, but what they don’t have is years of training and experience in writing resumes, or a career background in human resources for major companies and various industries. That’s the difference in seeking out a professional resume writer—we stay up-to-date with industry trends, and have seen what works and what doesn’t work, both as resume writers and as professionals in charge of hiring.

Is the Investment in an Executive Resume Writer Worth It?

As you might expect, I say yes, absolutely, investing in an executive resume writer is worth it. When you invest in professional resume writing services you aren’t just investing in a Microsoft Word document or PDF that you can hand out—you are actually investing in your career. Truly talented professional resume writers will help you suss out your career goals, your personal brand, and what from your work history can help you advance even further.

At the executive level, you can’t afford to make a poor first impression, or even a mediocre first impression. A professionally written resume helps you convey how seriously you take your career, while best providing the information that matters to help you land that interview for an executive role and give you the boost to get your career moving in the direction you want.

While you’re considering the benefits of using a professional resume writing service for your executive resume, you’re probably thinking about the cost. For more information about costs for professionally written executive resumes, you can read this article that discusses the costs of executive resumes.

If you’re still considering writing your own resume, you can find resume samples on our website, as well as a large number of tips for creating executive resumes on our blog.

For more information on what sets Great Resumes Fast apart from other resume writing companies, turn to our about page, or reach out to us with any questions you might have.

Are you tired of your resume being rejected by applicant tracking systems? I know how frustrating it is to submit your resume and receive no response. I hate seeing qualified people never breakthrough the screening process. It shouldn’t be that way. That’s why I created this guide and I encourage you to download the FREE PDF so you can start seeing better resume response rates!