There’s no overestimating the importance of an incredibly great resume. At a time when applicants have to send out between 100 and 200 applications to get a job, or 10 to 20 to even get an interview, you can’t afford to have a poor quality resume. It’ll slow down your search and make it that much harder to get the role you want.
It’s hardly a surprise, therefore, that so many people are willing to invest serious time and effort into their resumes. Some even go further, paying certified professional resume writers in Colorado to write the resume for them. Let’s look at the true cost of a bad resume, and the incredible value a great resume can provide.
The True Cost of a Bad Resume
First, let’s define a “bad resume.” A bad resume is basically one that doesn’t do a good job of selling the candidate in question, and thereby fails at its main purpose. Bad resumes can come in many forms and suffer from a plethora of faults. They might have poor formatting, a lack of relevant info, outdated contact details, and so on.
Bad resumes can cause all sorts of problems for the people who submit them, costing them time, money, effort, and opportunities.
Signs You Have A Bad Resume
Missed Opportunities
Perhaps the costliest issue with a bad resume is all the opportunities you might miss out on. After all, resumes are designed to be opportunity-generating documents. They’re used to help you get calls from recruiters and interviews with companies that want to work for you, giving you chances at jobs and careers and the kind of lifestyle you desire.
If your resume is badly optimized or just plain poor, it’s got a much higher chance of being rejected right away. That means far fewer calls back and way less chance of getting interviews and job offers with less pay. As such, a bad resume will almost undoubtedly lead to you missing out on jobs that you might have had a much better chance of obtaining if you submitted a stronger resume.
Wasted Time and Effort
Job seekers are encouraged to spend dozens of hours a week on their search. It can take up to or even more than an hour to submit a single application, when you factor in the time to read the description, write a cover letter, tailor your resume, and so on. That’s a lot of time spent trying to get a job, but if you’re doing it with a bad resume, hours upon hours of that time will be wasted.
As explained above, poor resumes have a far lower chance of getting a positive response from recruiters than good resumes. You might spend ages on an application, putting hard work into it, and hoping for the best, all to no avail. What’s more, your job search will inevitably take so much longer, and you could be waiting weeks or months to even get your first interview.
Frustration and Stress
Looking for a job and not getting what you want can take a toll. It’s tiring to send out dozens upon dozens of applications and build up your hopes, only to receive rejection after rejection. Or, even worse, to hear nothing back from the companies you apply to, forcing you to simply move on and try again, hoping for a better response.
The True Cost (and Value) of a Great Resume
Compared to a bad resume, a great resume offers invaluable advantages. It’s an infinitely more useful document to have as part of your job seeking arsenal, helping you gain more opportunities, impress recruiters, and perhaps even land the job of your dreams.
Here are just some ways in which a great resume can help you get ahead of the game, offering remarkable short and long-term value.
Getting Into Work Sooner
People with great resumes will almost always get into work sooner than those with bad ones. That’s simple logic. If you have a good quality resume with strong formatting and relevant, interesting info, you’ll naturally have a better chance of positive responses from recruiters. That means more calls, more interviews, and a streamlined path back into work.
The financial benefits of getting into work sooner than later are clear to see. Every day you’re not in work is a day that you’re not earning a wage or contributing to your pension. It’s a day that you have to cover the costs of life – rent, bills, mortgage, etc. – without a salary to help you.
Getting a job quickly is key to strengthening your financial situation and avoiding slipping into debt.
Better Opportunities
In general, the better the job, the harder it is to get. You’ll be up against more highly skilled applicants, and you’ll have to do more to impress the recruiter and get a shot at an interview. In other words, a bad resume just won’t cut it when you’re trying to land a really good job with a solid salary and serious responsibilities.
Yes, you may have to spend more time and effort on your resume. You may even have to invest money by hiring a resume pro to help you write it. But if it helps you get a job with a strong salary, your great resume will pay for itself a thousand times over, as you’ll quickly earn back whatever you spent, and then some.
The Incredible Value of a Super Resume
In today’s world, where people spend thousands a year on cups of coffee and streaming subscriptions, a one-off payment for a great resume really doesn’t seem like such bad value. Even if you spend a few hundred dollars getting your resume fine-tuned by expert resume writers, the benefits far outweigh the cost of that initial upgrade.
Not only can a good resume help you ease your way into the working world more quickly, but it can also help you secure a well-paying, satisfying role you feel proud of. The advantages of that, not just for your bank account, but for your lifestyle and mental health, are priceless.
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