Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) About Our Services

Professional resume writers are just like many of the other professionals you use when you need expert advice or services, such as lawyers, doctors, real estate agents, etc.

Today's job market requires your resume (and all your job-search marketing correspondence) to be focused, professional, and powerful. Your resume must highlight and market your key accomplishments, skills, and education.

An experienced professional resume writer takes all the information you provide and uses his/her experience to transform that information into a resume that will make employers take notice.

Do you need to hire a professional to work on your resume? If you're not sure, take our free online assessment: Could You Benefit from a Professional Resume Writer? An Assessment for Job-seekers

What makes your service the best resume-writing service?

You should hire our experts to write your resume because...

We are the largest, most experienced resume writing service. We are the only service that has led the industry with a multi-disciplinary career guidance practice since 1978 — and have been an online leader since 1996.
Our resumes consistently generate top results — we have written tens of thousands of powerful and distinctive resumes. Human resource professionals, recruiters, and managers respond quickly and enthusiastically. Our resumes also rank high with technology-based applicant screening systems.
Our services and content are published and featured on leading Websites, including employment, educational, professional association, and portal sites. CareerPerfect is the only resume writing service with the quality and experience to be the exclusive resume writing service of the Web's leading career sites.
Our knowledge is extensive, and unlike other services, we are career management experts and pioneers in online career planning. We provide leading-edge online career management tools and assessments for global fortune 500 corporations, universities and even the US Government. No other resume writing service in the world has this kind of career management expertise.
We have the largest, most experienced resume writing team. While many writers want to work for CareerPerfect, we only choose the best. Our in-house team of writers and editors start with a 4-year or graduate degree, often coupled with many years of writing, editing or teaching at the college level, and experience in a variety of fields — and then undergo our extensive resume writing certification. This, combined with our specialized industry knowledge and experience across all career levels from entry level to CEO, provides you with the finest writing team in the world and ensures we are able to match you with the best possible writer.

What kind of guarantee do you offer?

Your satisfaction is guaranteed. This may be the smartest investment you ever make since it offers the greatest return — your lifetime earning potential — and because we guarantee you will be 100% satisfied or we will rewrite your resume for free!

How do I order? What's the process?

Our steps are simple:

Place your order right online.
Complete our exclusive SkillNet™ Questionnaire.
Receive personal attention from an expert writer.
You will prepare a draft within 2-3 business days.
You receive a distinctive resume -- ready for you to land the perfect job!

How do the prices for the services provided by Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters compare with the industry average?

If you've shopped around the Internet for resumes and cover letters, you know that Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters offers resume prices that align with the industry average -- and many are lower! That's because we keep our overhead low and are committed to creating quality job-search correspondence that is affordable to all kinds of job-seekers. Our basic mode of delivery is electronic, reducing our costs and yours. Read more about how our services are a sound investment in your future.

What services do you offer?

We offer the following services for job-seekers.

DELUXE Services:

Powerfully written and designed DELUXE Resume in one distribution format of your choice.
Powerfully written and designed DELUXE Resume & Cover Letter Package in one distribution format of your choice.
Powerfully written and designed DELUXE Curriculum Vitae in one distribution format of your choice.
Powerfully written and designed DELUXE Curriculum Vitae & Cover Letter Package in one distribution format of your choice.

COMPREHENSIVE Services:

Powerfully written and designed COMPREHENSIVE Resume in three distribution formats (Presentation, Scannable, and ASCII) to further optimize your job search.
Powerfully written and designed COMPREHENSIVE Resume & Cover Letter Package in three distribution formats (Presentation, Scannable, and ASCII) to further optimize your job search.
Powerfully written and designed COMPREHENSIVE Curriculum Vitae in three distribution formats (Presentation, Scannable, and ASCII) to further optimize your job search.
Powerfully written and designed COMPREHENSIVE Curriculum Vitae & Cover Letter Package in three distribution formats (Presentation, Scannable, and ASCII) to further optimize your job search.

Additional Professional Services:

A professionally written Cover Letter designed to support your CV or resume.
A Strategic Follow-up Letter designed to strengthen the interviewer's perception of you.
A professionally written Bio to support your marketing activities.
Resume Edit: Your existing Resume professionally edited.

Can I see some sample resumes?

We're pleased to present our resume and cover letter samples, which showcase just a few of our most popular resume formats, layouts, and designs. Virtually endless variations are possible, depending on the individual needs of our customers.

Can I read some customer testimonials?

Of course we have testimonials from our customers! Please feel free to browse through these customer testimonials.

How do I know what kind of resume is best for me?

Consider a chrono-functional resume if:	Consider a chronological resume if:
You have very diverse experiences that don't add up to a clear-cut career path.	Most/all of your experience has been in one field.
You are a college student with minimal experience and/or experience unrelated to your chosen career field.	You are an established job-seeker with steady experience in your chosen field.
Some of your experience is not traditional paid employment, but internships, volunteer work, class projects, sports, leadership positions -- and/or the actual experience may be secondary to the skills attained.	Your experience is primarily traditional paid employment.
You want to transition to a new field that is very different from what all your previous experience points to.	You plan to stay in the same field when you pursue your next job.
You have been unemployed for more than a few months or have gaps in your work history. Example: Homemakers who took time to raise and family and now wish to return to the workplace. For those with gaps, a chronological format can draw undue attention to the gaps, while a functional resume enables you to portray transferable skills attained through such activities as domestic management and volunteer work.	You have minimal or no gaps in your work history.
Someone looking at your resume or work history for a few seconds would not be able to immediately discern what you want to do and what you're good at.	Someone looking at your resume or work history for a few seconds would know immediately what you want to do and what you're good at.
You seek a job in a field that is not extremely conservative.	Your field is very conservative (examples: banking, law), and functional resumes are not the norm.
Your chronological resume gives the appearance of a "job-hopper" because some of your jobs have been of short duration and/or you've held several jobs over a relatively short period.	You've been at most of your jobs for more than a year, and preferably at least two.
You do NOT plan to submit your resume to Monster.com and/or other job boards that do not accept functional resumes (or you plan to have a chronological version for job boards and a chrono-functional version for other uses).	Submitting your resume to Monster.com and/or other job boards is a primary part of your job-seeking strategy.
You do NOT plan to submit your resume to headhunters, recruiters, or executive search firms -- which tend NOT to favor functional resumes (or you plan to have a chronological version for headhunters, recruiters, and executive search firms and a chrono-functional version for other uses).	Submitting your resume to headhunters, recruiters, and/or executive search firms is a primary part of your job-seeking strategy.

See also our article, What Resume Format is Best for You?

What is a scannable or text-based resume, and under what circumstances would I need one?

A scannable/text-based resume is one that is essentially stripped of formatting. It has no bold type, no italics, no underlining, no bullets, no fancy fonts, no tabbing, no columns, and no rule lines. It is often, though not always, created or saved in a text (.txt) file format.

Fewer and fewer employers are using scannable resumes today. Instead of scanning a mailed or faxed print version of your resume, they are skipping the scanning step and asking job candidates to e-mail their resumes -- as an attachment to an e-mail message, in the body of an e-mail message itself, or entered into a Web-based form. That's why it's such an advantage that our resume and cover letter products include both the formatted, "print" version of your documents and an unformatted, e-mailable, text version.

Employers use scannable/text-based resumes in three ways primarily:

Receiving your printed scannable resume as hard copy, employers scan it electronically, converting it into a digitized format so that they can then search for keywords in your resume to determine if you are qualified for the job you've applied for. Again, the trend today is away from scanning.
Receiving your resume as part of an e-mail message (as opposed to receiving it attached to an e-mail message as a separate document), the employer can then immediately search for keywords since your resume is already in digitized form.
Many employers have forms built into their Web sites that enable you to paste your resume into a portion of the form. Many job-posting sites, such as Headhunter.net, have similar forms on their sites. Text-based resumes are the best bet for posting your resume on one of these sites.

A scannable/text-based resume is not pretty, but the newer technologies require most job-seekers to have one along with your more attractive print resume. Job-seekers may feel it's sufficient to send their print resume to employers as an attachment to e-mail, but many employers don't want to receive resumes as attachments because attachments can carry viruses.

How do you know what format to send and how to send it? Read want ads carefully as they will often reveal the employer's preference. If no preference is stated, try to contact the company to ask the preferred format and delivery method. See our article, Your E-resume's File Format Aligns with its Delivery Method.

Why is an e-mailable, electronic resume package such a significant advantage?

More than 80 percent of employers are now placing resumes directly into searchable databases and an equal percentage of employers prefer to receive resumes by e-mail.

The format that career experts currently recommend for sending your job-search material consists of:

A formatted, "print" resume in document form sent as an attachment to an e-mail message to the employer.
A text-based e-resume stripped of most formatting and pasted directly into the same e-mail message into which your print resume is attached.

Sending your resume in text-based format directly in an e-mail message removes all obstacles to an employer's placing your resume right into a searchable database. If that's the case, why do you still need the formatted, "print" resume in document form sent as an attachment? Because the employer may want to print out your resume to review it, especially once the database search has narrowed down the candidates, and the formatted, print version will be more reader-friendly than the text-based version. You'll also want to have a print version of your resume on hand to take to interviews and for occasions when employers request resumes in "old-fashioned" ways -- by mail or fax.

Some employers still prefer the formatted document version of your resume attached to an e-mail message, while others won't open attachments because of concerns about viruses and incompatibilities among word-processing programs.

For a truly complete e-mailable, electronic package, you should add:

A text-based cover letter stripped of most formatting and pasted directly into the same e-mail message into which your print resume is attached.

If you already have a resume you're happy with and simply need it converted to electronic/text format, order our Electronic/Text Conversion.

Go to the Placing an Order page now.

What's the difference between a resume and a curriculum vitae (CV)?

CVs and resumes both have similar purposes -- as marketing documents that provide key information about your skills, experiences, education, and personal qualities that show you as the ideal candidate. Where a resume and a curriculum vitae differ is their use, format, and length.

In the U.S., a curriculum vitae is often used for medical and scientific positions, as well as positions in higher education.

Outside the U.S., the CV is the more widely used job-seeking document.

While resumes are generally limited to two pages, CVs can be unlimited in length and include many more categories than a resume. Outside the U.S., CVs generally include information that would rarely, if ever, be included on a U.S. resume, such as personal data, hobbies and interests, and greater detail about education than would be included on a U.S. resume.

Why do I need a cover letter?

A cover letter should always accompany your resume. Even though most job ads don't always specifically mention a cover letter, it is expected. Few employers will seriously consider a resume without a letter. A cover letter tells the employer exactly what kind of job you want to do and tailors your qualifications to that job.

Frequently the job-seeker will see this line in a rejection letter: "We chose the candidate who provided the best fit with our needs." The cover letter is the way to show an employer how you fit the company's needs.

Given the screening process, a cover letter may have fewer than 20 seconds to grab an employer's attention. A well-written, interesting cover letter that opens a window on your personality has a much better chance of enticing the employer to interview you than a boring, formulaic one.

Do you offer career tips and advice beyond what's on this site?

You bet! Our parent site, Quintessential Careers, boasts more than 3,500 pages of articles, tools, tips, and tutorials, as well as links to all the best job sites. Special sections for teens, college students, and all other job-seekers (by industry, geography, and job-seeker type) makes this site a comprehensive resource for all. It's the ultimate career, job, and college site, offering comprehensive free expert career and job-hunting advice.

Do you have a job board where I can post my new resume?

Yes. In fact, we have one of the best job boards for job-seekers, where you can post your resume and search job postings. But besides those key elements, our job board also offers many other features for job-seekers. Read more about using our job board.

Go to the Quintessential Careers Job Board now.

Do you offer coaching services?

We offer life coaching services for our clients.

Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters is pleased to provide a directory of life and career coaches -- so that when you feel you need one -- you can find the perfect professional for your needs. Go to our Directory of Life and Career Coaches.

Do you provide a site map to this site?

Yes. To help you find the information you are seeking about our professionally developed career-marketing documents, we provide a very straight-forward guide to our site.

Go to the Site Map of Quintessential Resumes & Cover Letters.

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