It’s a scam. Do not use this service.
I never usualy write reviews but i’ve never felt so ripped off by anything i’ve paid for in my entire life. I’m furious.
I’m currently stuck in a very demanding job that I hate and my life outside of work is so busy that I’m struggling to find the time to keep crafting resumes and cover letters for all the jobs I want to apply for. I thought using this service wauld help me quickly apply for a few jobs I had my eyes on and then after that, I thought i’d have a much stronger resume and LinkedIn profile I could adapt to apply for other roles quicker.
I thought I could trust this company due to the quality of their resume.io website that i’ve been using for the last few years.
What a mistake.
For some background about my carrer, I’m currently working in green green tech but my life outsiode of work is deidcated to music and i’ve studied sound technology at university. I’ve been trying and failing to find a role in the music industry for years. I’ve recently turned my attention to trying to start a career path in sync/music supervision. Many of the entry level roles for this career path are administrative; often positions such as royalties administrators or copyright assistants. I’m confident my background in administration and green tech has given me the transferable skills and experience to succeed in these roles - I just need help selling myself, getting past ATS and condensing my resumes and cover letters as they tend to be a bit too long.
Let’s get the two positives of this service out of the way first:
1. They’ve made my music related skills more of a focus on my resume, which I think helps show my personality and passion for music better. Before they were only mentioned briefly in the hobbies section.
2. They’ve condensed my previously quite wordy resume.
Now for the issues:
The writer clearly hasn't read and seemed determined not to read the job listings i shared with him that I want to apply for. Instead he gave me a generic music resume and cover letter - i could have found a similar template on the internet myself for free.
None of the jobs i’ve shared actually ask for music skills - they're all administrative roles within a music environment. So the skills they've asked for include things like attention to detail, being good with data, strong written communication, organisation etc. It would have been easy for the writer to pull out examples of these from my old resume and notes I shared with him. Instead, the writer has totally ignored the skills and experience the jobs I want to apply for have asked for, and instead talked exclusively about unrelated music skills like mixing, mastering, live sound etc.
As a so called professional writer I'm astounded by his lack of knowledge about the job application process. One of the golden rules is to not clutter a resume and cover letter with skills and experience that aren’t relevant to the job you're applying for, yet in my first draft the writer didn't mention a single skill or piece of experience that aligned with the jobs i’ve shared and mentioned some of the unrelated music skills three seperate times.
This would never get past ATS, as they haven't mirrored any language or key skills from the job listings i’ve shared.
After my first draft came back i pointed out that he hadnt mentioned any relevant skills and experience. So their solution was to crowbar in a couple of my suggestions into sentences, which meant they now make no sense. Some examples:
“Refined communicator with exceptional organisation and attention to detail skills; committed to engaging in live gigs and club nights to keep abreast of the latest developments in the music scene.”
These are two unrelated points so not sure why they’ve been merged them with a semi colon?Doesnt make sense.
“Delivered comprehensive support for the UK’s largest heat pump trial, achieving detailed customer insights through efficient management of surveys, certifications, and grant processes. “
This doesnt make sense – certifications and grant processes had nothing to do with achieving customer insights.
Overall, the quality of writing is poor. It’s generic. Large sections are overly wordy and sound like they were written by chatgpt. I did an AI test and it came back with a 45% ‘likely written by AI’ verdict.
I’ve spent most of my spare time over the past few weeks trying to analyse the documents he’s given to me, list all the mistakes, then draft up responses. This has taken up more of my time than if i’d have written the job applications myself.
There's no discussion. I thought we’d be able to bounce ideas off each other but the writer avoids most of my questions and suggestions. And he clearly hasn’t listened to my requirements.
Before my first draft came back, i realised i was going to miss the deadlines for the three jobs i originally shared, so i asked the support team whether the writer could focus on a cover letter and resume for one particular job only. They said it would be fine. The writer didn’t do this. I asked the writer directly a second time. He ignored me. I’ve messaged the writer a week or two ago highlighting all of the issues with his work, asking why he’s ignored my requests, and asking him one last time of he could write me a cover letter and resume for that one job i now want to focus on. I haven’t heard anything since.
Overall it's failed on all fronts:
1. It hasn't sped up my job search. Its actually slowed it down. In the time i’ve spent dealing with this i’ve missed all of the jobs i wanted to apply for.
2. It hasn't given me anything i can use. Large portions of it are obviously generated by a chatbot. If employers use the same AI checker i used they’ll reject my resume. Even if they don’t used an AI checker, the resume doesn’t mirror any of the language or mention any of the skills or experience necessary for the jobs i want to apply for, so it will probably be rejected by ATS.
The whole package cost nearly £200 but i reckon the writer has only spent about an hour on this. It feels lazy and rushed and should only cost about £20. Charging £200 for this service is a scam.
If the team don’t give me a refund i’ll be chasing the money back via my card company.