Isn’t it interesting that we spend the least amount of time planning for that which we will be spending the most amount of time in our lives. I’m referring to your career. Perhaps you read my other articles on “Happenstance Careers” – that most of us arrive where we are by happenstance. Extremely few people go through a formal exercise of actually planning their career path in a proven, methodical way. And this nonchalance often extends itself to resumes.

I have a client, George, who is an executive and hired me to write his resume. His existing resume is very old style in that it just jumps right into his work history, listing roles and responsibilities. No summary of what he wants – no indication of any skills or successes.

Now the absolutely right, most appropriate way to write a resume is to start with a thoughtful worksheet that gets you thinking about the skills you offer a new employer. This exercise not only helps you remember what you would brag about in front of an employer, it improves your interviewing skills. It takes anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours to complete. George doesn’t want to do it. Ok, that’s fine, we can cover the details in the phone interview where we’ll ask him a bunch of questions to extract the skills and accomplishments that will be featured in his resume. George doesn’t want to do that either. According to him, if he was going to spend time on his resume, he would write it himself. So essentially he doesn’t want to spend any time on the most important document used in chartering his next career move.

This is an extreme example (thank God) but variations occur and the point is made – a resume writing service (at least a good one) is not designed to let you off the hook for thinking about your career. It is a proven methodology to bring out the best in you, help you realize the value you bring to employers, and give you clarity as to who you are and what you are worth. Isn’t that worth a bit of your time?