At Arras People we have a little service we’re really proud about – our careers clinic – basically for £25 for one our four nominated charities we spend 30 minutes helping project management candidates on different areas of their career. We bring a combined 55 years project management experience between the consultants who offer the service – Mick, John, Nicola and Lindsay and to date have had some lovely feedback from people who have used the service and gone on to secure a new role (often not through us – see we’re caring and sharing!).
In a recent clinic, a candidate had paid £350 for a 2 hour careers clinic with a leading provider – they ran out of ideas and ended up giving him half of his money back. Half a hour with us he got loads of ideas and left feeling totally focused and very happy. I’m glad he decided to part with a hard urged £25 and try us – not many would – once bitten twice shy.
Which leads me to question – there are professional CV writing services all across the web – how on earth do you judge which service will give value for money and ultimately the end product you’re looking for?
I know that many of the services take you through a career synopsis – asking questions to draw out of you detailed information about the job you’ve performed and then using their professional service to produce a professional looking CV. My concerns here are the questions being asked – when we carry out the careers clinics (we’ve been doing clinics for over 2 years) it becomes apparent very quickly that getting the best out of anyone’s career is all down to the questions asked and not taking anything as read. It’s amazing how many different definitions of “I managed this project” there are. So – what role did you ACTUALLY perform, what skills came into play, was the project run in a formal structured methodology or something quite informal, did the PM role include financial management, commercial negotiations, team management etc etc. It’s often the detail that comes from these kinds of questions that can really be harnessed in the CV. The reader of the CV can then really get a sense of what the project was about and how you went about managing it.
When using professional CV services – specifically if you’re a project management professional – it’s always worth asking if anyone has professional works experience in project management themselves – the resulting conversation may give enough insight to allow you to make an informed decision about the service offering and whether you’re likely to get the service and outcome you’re looking for.
Failing that – if you’re happy to take the advice and write your own CV you could always give Arras People a try 
