Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Beware of Resume Scams

I learned something last week that has really crawled up under my skin and stayed there. I got an e-mail from an online resume site called e-resume.net (lack of link intentional). They must have bought or stolen my address from the National Resume Writers' Association. The message said that the company is seeking freelance resume writers. If I wanted to be considered, I would need to submit my own resume and samples of my work. Fair enough.

But what made me drop my proverbial uppers was this: e-resume.net pays its freelance writers $35 to write a professional resume, have direct contact with the client, and work with them until the client is satisfied. Now, folks, I have it on good authority (my own), that such an arrangement would require an average of 5 hours to do adequately. So do the math. They are paying resume writers $7 an hour! Imagine what kind of quality you'll get from someone who writes for less than they could make at Taco Bell.

But it gets so much worse. e-resume.net turns around and sells that same professional resume to the poor client for $155. So for doing nothing more than serving as a net to catch clients, e-resume.net is walking away with $120.

e-resume.net boasts that they have been chosen by the LA Times as "the best of the bunch," and that they are CareerBuilder's only direct resume-writing partner. Really? How long before this all catches up with them?

While I'm busy exposing scandals, take a look at this one. Ask the Headhunter's Nick Corcodilos recently wrote this expose on supposed $100K job site The Ladders. The gist of it is that they are charging people to access their database of $100K jobs, but a great percentage of those jobs don't pay anywhere close to $100K. Also, they are allegedly employing low-paid resume writers and using deceptive tactics when critiquing customers' existing resumes.

Resume and career scams are as plentiful now as gypsy roofers after a hailstorm, and they have the potential to tarnish the image of the legitimate career professionals out there. If you need resume or career help, I urge you to work directly with a professional member of one of the following organizations:

6 comments:

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Anonymous said...

more details about 'best of the bunch' here in the December 7, 2000 article by Jennifer Oldham.

Anonymous said...

A good post on "Beware of Resume Scams".An important point is a resume and cover letter should be the marketing tools that help candidate to land the position that is perfect for him.

Thanks,
Karim


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Anonymous said...

How I wish I had seen this before I fell for one, sponsored by a job site! I thought the first draft was good, for a draft, but I was shocked when 'that was it'. I was seriously annoyed when I later saw Crocodilos' article revealing that the critique is often little more than a form letter to convince you that you have a lousy CV in need of their services. I only trusted them because they were sponsored by a huge and well-known site. This is happening in Europe as well as the US and Canada.

Lori Cates Hand said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lori Cates Hand said...

My father-in-law recently got the same pitch from a somewhat well-known site. I wrote his resume for him, so he knew it was a scam!