This Q&A about resume writing services appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald recently. A good professional writer will improve one’s short-listing chances by 30-40 percent. Whether they actually get the job is another question.
I’ve been applying for jobs but can’t get a look in. I rarely hear back from the organisations I apply to. On the rare occasion I do, I immediately follow up and ask for their thoughts on why I wasn’t suitable. I have never received a reply.
A friend suggested I try a resume improvement service. I am keen to improve my applications in any way I can, so I took their advice. But the response from the service was underwhelming. It mentioned a few broad, common-sense ideas, but I was already employing all of them. It mentioned some more specific ones, but I’m not convinced they improved my resume at all – one in particular seemed like a terrible suggestion. Am I just being precious or have I been sold a lemon?
Malcolm King. If you’re looking for a resume writer, make sure they are reputable and have ‘runs on the board’. Look at their reviews and testimonials.
Make sure you are a realistic candidate for a position. We’ve had people on $60K salaries apply for executive positions at the $110K rate. Complete waste of time.
There is a fear campaign driven by idiots, which state you have to use buzzwords and fill your resume and cover letter with key words. A professional resume writer works in partnership with the clients. They’ll make sure it passes and ATS program. What recruiters look for is accomplishments.
I advise clients to steer away from jobs advertised by Employment Hero and Exprs33!, as they use AI software where the job applications parameters are set so narrowly, it’s pointless applying. The introduction of AI into recruitment is a major step backwards.
SMH. The experience you outlined at the top of your question is representative of a major, long-term shift in the way job applications are generally processed. One of the main by-products of this shift is capable, well-qualified people earnestly and conscientiously applying for jobs and hearing absolutely nothing in response.
I have no doubt there are good resume improvement services out there that genuinely help jobseekers, so I think your friend’s advice was reasonable. But I hope you didn’t take that advice thinking “my applications must be hopeless, and I desperately need to improve them”.
The fact is that various factors, advancements in AI being just one of them, mean that job hunts today are radically different to – and arguably far more deflating than – job hunts of not very long ago.
It’s true that what you’re experiencing may be caused by an imperfect resume or a not-quite-right cover letter or a misapprehension about where your own strengths lie. But I think it’s much more likely to be the product of a pitiless and cold job application system in 2026.
The other major problem with what you were given is that many recommendations related to things your resume clearly already does. In some cases, the report conceded this, but in others it seemed to suggest these were areas of improvement or elements that you’d neglected.
This is one of many examples of the report’s wording being amiss. Much of it reads just a bit off. It points to something I don’t think will surprise you in the slightest: I don’t think it was written by a human.
At best, it might have been perfunctorily edited by one. It reads to me like a collection of generic “improvements” selected from a presumably long, pre-written list, roughly collated and then given one or two token tweaks – a name here, a reference to a job there – in a tepid attempt to personalise it.
But the major worry I have is that my first-glance take – that so many of these touted improvements are just half-arsed adaptations of dusty self-help waffle – is wrong. That when the report essentially tells you to load your resume with impenetrable jargon it is, in fact, offering you practical, useful advice.
That to have your resume get through the applicant tracking system that gate keeps for so many hiring managers today, you do indeed need to turn your resume into a catalogue of highly specific, fatuous and facile “keywords”.