It’s a good question, as some firms tout hour long consultations as a benefit, when this is not always the case. Indeed, in many cases, ‘hour long’ consultations are deliberately padded out, and are frequently more of a marketing gimmick than good use of your valuable time.
Well, Paul works by email only, and has done for many years. He not only finds email more accurate and reliable, but his clients tend to find the process easier and less time-consuming to boot.
At the same time some clients, and some writers, prefer to chat. Sylvia and Natalie both work by both email and telephone and are happy to chat with clients.
Typical firms frequently discuss things such as your career history, your objectives, things that you feel is wrong with your CV, and things that you’d like to include.
As mentioned, it’s common for typical firms to take up an hour of your time to chat about all of that.
Not really.
Any CV consultant worth their salt can get much of your career history from your original CV and they can derive more than just objectives from a relevant job specification.
We know that.
You know that.
Yet they still take an hour of your time to go through the motions.
Notably, any CV consultant worth their salt should be able to see for themselves what is wrong with your original CV, and what needs doing, adding or changing to improve it.
Like we say, it’s often more of a marketing gimmick than good use of your valuable time.
No.
They are aware that your time is precious. Their focus is on gleaning any important information that can’t already be derived from your original CV and/or a relevant job specification.
Yes, they can also answer questions and guide and advise you, but it will be professional and they won’t take up more of your time than they need.
No. Indeed, many of our clients don’t want the burden of phone consultations at all. That’s not just the case for Paul’s clients, but with some of Sylvia and Natalie’s clients too.
In such cases, we are used to working with their original CV and details of their target job as well as any other information they choose to provide (for example, a few lines of notes). And we do more with that than other firms do with one hour padded out consultations.
Some people think that this might be the case, but the reality is very different. Indeed, clients are often surprised and delighted, not only at just what we include, but also how we include it (succinctly and powerfully).
When we send CVs to clients, we do say that if they want something else added then to just let us know – but it’s very rare that they want to add anything (and when they do it’s usually either something that’s already included, or it’s something that’s not relevant to their target).
Why is this?
Well, we’ve been doing this for a long time, we know what we are doing, we know what employers want to hear, and we are used to selling employers what they want to hear, very powerfully, on your behalf.
Please feel free to view some of our helpful articles
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The CV sector uncovered
CV format
Statistics and the CV sector
Executive CV length
How accurate are ATS checks?