Wasted $200 on a resume service that just used AI

I paid a professional resume writer $200 and she basically just copied my LinkedIn into a template and ran it through an AI summarizer. The bullet points were so generic like 'improved team efficiency' with zero numbers or specific projects I actually did. I got zero callbacks in three weeks after using her version. I went back to my old messy resume and started sending it out again. Now I'm editing it myself using free guides from my university's alumni site. Has anyone else had bad luck with those expensive resume rewriting services?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_simon1mo ago

I paid a graphic designer $150 last year to redo my resume and it came back looking pretty but totally empty. No metrics, no specific tools I used, just fluff like "streamlined operations." I wasted a month with it before I went back to a version I wrote myself in high school that actually got me interviews. The free guides from places like Ask A Manager or even posting on r/resumes were way more useful than paying someone who doesn't know what I actually did. I think the best resume advice is just write exactly what you did, with numbers if you can, and pick a clean template that doesn't look like a robot wrote it.

the_phoenix1mo ago

Whoa, hard disagree here. A good designer should know to ASK you for your metrics and actual accomplishments before writing anything, not just make it look pretty. If you paid someone $150 and they gave you fluff, you just hired the wrong person, not that the whole concept is broken.