As all the recruitment agencies and companies use to say nowadays, job situation is tough. There are no vacancies available. If there are, they require a level of skills and knowledge and experience that most part of young people haven’t.
I’ve been applying to thousands of vacancies any single day. In some way, I’ve wasted my time: as usual, no answers at all, neither automatic. If I ring recruitment agencies I’ve been visiting this month, they answer they have no jobs available “or they’d give me a call”. If I e-mail them a copy of my CV again, they simply ignore me.

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After weeks of silence and refusals, I decided to completely re-build my CV. Maybe it was just a matter of layout or contents or highlights. So I searched on the Web for some CV samples to fill out with my datas.
I run into tons of websites that said they’d be “pleased to help me to find the perfect job just re-writing my CV for me”. A team of experts would transform my banal CV into something unique, something able to catch employers’ attention before other candidates could do it.
There it is the solution, then: letting someone else building my résumé! It would be more powerful, more interesting. In a word: great. But… how to pay a CV Review team if I am unemployed? Because, of course, those services have a cost. How much? It depends. Prices start from 49£. Not that much, but let’s first read the T&Cs: for 49£ they’ll just review the CV you wrote by yourself. They’ll just correct grammar and typos, nothing else. If you want them to re-write it all, well, conditions change then: prices start from 59£, depending on how much they should change it. Read: fake it to let it be more impressive.

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To support the astonishing efficiency of their work, CV Review teams have published on their websites testimonies from people who asked for their help. With a brand-new CV written by them, those people found a job just the day after receiving it in their mailbox! Surely impressive and maybe true. After all, situation wasn’t that desperate until few years ago. Indeed, a perfect and brilliant and readeable CV could make the difference. So, who wouldn’t accept to pay 59£ for a stunning résumé if he/she was sure to get a job in max 48 hours?
But situation has now changed and I couldn’t pay anybody to write my CV for me.

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I downloaded a CV sample from The CV Centre website and proceeded to fill it out with my datas.
Actually, it was more readable and shorter now. It seemed to be able to catch employers’ and agencies’ attention with just a blink of an eye. From that day on, I started to forward that one. But nothing changed. No answers from recruitment agencies – I will talk about that particular phenomenon in another article: it’d be too long to be explained here! – no answers from companies. The few of them that decided to give me a response just sent me the typical “We’re sorry, but you have been unsuccesful this time”. And that’s all.
After a month spent searching for a job any single day – I am still unemployed – I started to wonder if I should really pay one of those teams to review my CV. Sure, I was unemployed and XX£ are quite a lot, but maybe it’d help!

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I filled out a couple of information forms. The first agency didn’t reply at all. The second, before going on, adviced me that the complete review and re-writing of my CV would cost me 69£. I gave up. Not to be a Scrooge, but 69£ are half a month shopping in Tesco! Whilst I can manage to be successful using a not totally perfect CV, I cannot avoid buying food!
I continued to apply using my old CV. Maybe not the best CV in the world, but surely cheaper. Moreover, a recruitment agency – the only one that replied! – meanwhile told me that my CV was correct. There were just a couple of typos here and there. I sighed of relief: I had saved my money.

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I had almost forgotten about my CV Review subscriptions. Yesterday I received an email from one of them. What they wrote froze me on the chair.
According to what they say, my CV is a complete crap. Language, layout, content: everything’s a mess!
I went on reading. I was absolutely positive that all those light accusations had to lead somewhere. And I perfectly knew where.
I just copy and paste the whole message below. I’ve disguised the name and the details identifying the company.
I suppose it doesn’t need any comment. Except, maybe, for some – let’s call them – typos.

________________

Hello,

T**** C** CV Review Team

________________

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“In its current state I would be surprised if you were able to get recruitment agencies to put you through to enough clients to get that next step up in your career“
Surely I am the one surprised! I would never imagine to find a psychological blackmail in a message that’s supposed to offer me a help!
Many people could be really susceptible to that kind of subliminal attack. Instead, I’ve found myself just pissed by that sentence – and now I’m trying to calm down simply reporting the whole episode.

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“There were lots of grammatical / spelling and sentence errors including a number of duplicated words”.
Surely my English is far from being perfect. I’m doing my best to improve it day after day, but I’m not a British native and I’ve been living in the UK for a year so far. I suppose it’s normal to show a lack of language knowledge now and then.
On the contrary, people working for the CV Review Team should be English native to correct my “language horrors” in the best way possible, shouldn’t they? So why are they confusing “your” with “yours” and using the word “areas” with such a frequency? Isn’t that a repetition?

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“The layout was very poor, improvements could be made by utilising the space better and therefore reducing the length of the document. Ideally 2/3 pages is more than enough”
Well, maybe they just didn’t pay enough attention, but my CV is 2 pages and a half long. As for the layout, it comes directly from a sample downloaded from a website recommended also by Job Centre Plus.

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All those CVs Review agencies have started to multiply like ants only in the last 6 months. Before, they were not that many. The lower the credit crunch falls, the higher becomes the number of foxies ready to exploit the situation. CV Review teams, leafletting jobs proposed as events promotion roles, door-to-door presented as customer service and sales jobs. It doesn’t matter if targets of those almost-scams are unemployed and young and needy people. Those companies take advantage of credit crunch consequences like vulturs.
After being cheated 5 times, I’ve learned that Marketing Advertising Company is a professional way to call a door-to-door job in 99% of cases. Sometimes they hide it using words like “face-to-face”: hard to foresee that you’ll find yourself knocking at others’ doors when it sounds to be more an Events Promotion position!
Sometimes they don’t even write face-to-face. They just say they are “a marketing advertising company searching for talented and smart sales agents”. If, while applying, you specify that you do not want a door-to-door job, they cheat you telling that’s just a Customer Service role.

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Anyway, getting back to my sincere, darling friends of the CVs Review Team, I’ve decided to give them a second chance. Maybe my CV is really as rubbishy as they say. That’s why I’ve downloaded another sample from The CV Centre and modified just the name and the personal details. I am now a young British guy, a webdesigner searching for a job. I have been working for the company since my degree in 2008 and I live in London. Degree? The same: Media & Communication. The most modern and useful, nowadays! You’ll surely have no problems finding a job!, they told me when I started university in 2001. Thank Goodness! What if I had chosen a classical, genuine Liberal Arts course?

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What upsets me most is the way those CV Review teams operate. They use the perfect words to hit the mark they want. No matter if that means to dip the knife into unemployed people’s scourge. They know they’ll convince a good part of them to pay for their service just sending those emails. After staying home for such a long time, unemployed persons would do anything to get a job. If those teams are really able to offer them a small chance – according to what they write about the service – desperate people will be more than glad to pay 69£ to get a powerful CV.
“As our CV writing prices start from £69, your new CV only needs to get you your next job 1 day earlier for it to be cost effective!”
Personally, I’d prefer to get a job one day later and save 69£ instead of risking to lose them to take a chance “one day earlier”.
Anyway, let’s wait and see what they’ll say of Alex’s CV. He’s a great webmaster with a perfect CV. Why should they destroy it?
I’ll wait and see.

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15th March 2010 – Update

I had no doubts: the opinion that the CV Review Team sent to Mr Alex B. regarding his CV is identical to the one they wrote me 4 days ago. Scores are a bit different – not that much! – but… hey, he’s a professional webdesigner! And he has an excellent cultural background, too! But, despite of that, he’s got just the double of my scores. Read: less than a half of the total. So, again, Alex’s CV is a complete crap as much as mine!
A bit comfortable, but surely not less irritating!

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Hello,

T**** C** CV Review Team
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