How to Choose CV Writing Service in Pakistan?

For the past half a decade or so, professional CV writing service in Pakistan has grown by leaps and bounds, when in 2010 if you did a basic search on the internet, you couldn't find a single dedicated CV and resume writing service in Pakistan, but now if you search on Google you will find almost a dozen CV and resume writing services in Pakistan.

Although this ecosystem of CV writing is good for the consumer, but saturation in the market makes it very difficult to choose a good CV writing service. Although there can be numerous reasons or things to watch out when selecting a good CV service in Pakistan, we will discuss one of the key logistical reason which you should look for when choosing a CV writing Service i.e. CV writers.

CV Writers in Pakistan - How Important They Are in CV Making Process

The reason we choose CV writers as one of the most significant reasons for choosing a CV writing service is plain and simple: Writers will be writing your CV, and you should inquire about this information firsthand from the CV writing company whom you engage. Ask them the very basic questions like

The best way to ensure that you get all things right in your resume or CV is to first write all your relevant academics and work experiences in order and then ensure that you get all the relevant personal information correct, heavy emphasis here is on the "relevant". Once that is done make sure you get at least 4 -5 people to rate your CV building effort, then revise and redraft, finally given the current era of social media you can ask some HR professional to score your CV as well.

• Do your CV writers have relevant English writing skills?
• Do your CV writers have experience in the Industry I am from?
• Do your CV writers have experience in Pakistan’s job market?
• Are your CV writers in-house or outsourced?
• Will I be able to communicate with my CV writer?
• How qualified is my CV writer?
• Will there be one CV writer or multiple CV writers?
• Will the document completed by your CV writer be reviewed by someone before finalizing?

Often times in Pakistan a CV writer would be working on multiple documents and will be copy pasting from the internet. Make sure that you run a basic internet search of some parts of the CV which you receive from the professional CV writing service which you engage.

Now to dig deeper as to why a CV writer is important and what his Key skills, abilities and knowledge should be?:

1. Written Skills
2. Industry Knowledge
3. Current HR Knowledge
4. Technology Savvy
5. Psychological

Written skills of a CV writer in Pakistan

Now for a fact check: English is not a native language in Pakistan, so most of the time if your CV writer is from Pakistan and you are also Pakistani then you have to be very careful with grammar and sentence structuring, although there are many grammar related software’s and websites but they will only help you to an extent. Make sure that the CV writing service you engage has a good panel of CV writers, you should ask the company what is the number of years of experience the writer has in writing profiles? Has he written any CV’s or Resumes for my industry? What are his English language qualifications? These kinds of questions will set you on the right track for finalizing a good CV writing service.

Industry Knowledge

Industry knowledge or field related knowledge of a CV writer should be the focus of your analysis when finalizing a resume writing company. Having said this, let’s keep in mind that although CV writing profession is good and you can have a good CV writer, but you cannot expect a CV writer to be a master of your profession. CV writers not only in Pakistan but also world over do basic research of jobs and job skills, job descriptions for clients whose resume or CV they are tasked with writing, so you have to cut them some slack, but because some of the job functions can be lumped together like Marketing, Finance and Operations that is why it is important to ask the CV writing company whether the person has experience in your relevant field. A scenario for this will look something like this: Suppose you are a finance manager in a pharma company, your question to the CV writing company should be, Is the writer familiar with writing profiles for finance and accounting people? Has he or she written profiles for people in finance? Has your CV writer written profiles for people in pharma industry? Notice that we do not emphasize that you ask whether they have experience in writing CV’s for a finance manager in pharma industry but ask whether at some point these 2 industries and job natures have collided or not? This is sufficient as to gauge the skill of a CV writer who will be writing your CV.

HR Knowledge

When we say HR knowledge for a CV writer in Pakistan, we do not mean that he should know HR functions, rather CV writers in Pakistan should be familiar with the recruitment and selection criteria of HR departments and employment agencies in Pakistan. They should be well versed with what kind of profiles HR people in Pakistan like and dislike and write your profile around that. Although CV writers in Pakistan are people who generally have a good hold on English, but you would find that they lack this particular skill as this requires that people spend a good part of their career in the workforce.

Technology Savvy

CV writers should be tech savvy, when we say this, we actually mean they should have a good grasp of all the word processors, grammar and other software’s, including knowing how to write an ATS based CV or Resume. Nowadays companies are shifting from traditional shortlisting and Resumes are processed in ATS’s, ATS stands for Applicant tracking systems which are shortlisting software’s based on crude algorithms to crawl a document and find specific information from a document. This reduces the time spent going through a CV and hence HR and employment firms around the world are now shifting and relying on these ATS’s to do their job for them. Your CV writing service should guarantee you that the CV written for you would be also ATS compatible. Just as a litmus test, you can ask your CV writing company in Pakistan whether they can write a resume based on ATS and if they do not have any clue of what an ATS is then they are better left alone.

Psychological Skill set

Coming to the last section of our piece, the need for CV writers in Pakistan to be psychologically astute. So, when writing a profile, a CV writer should dig into the minds of recruiters who would be going through the CV which they are writing. It is a known fact that recruiters spend about 10 - 15 seconds on a profile before deciding to shortlist or trash them. Hence, he should know where to place which kind of data in the document (the challenge here is this that a quality profile should not exceed 2 pages). For example, if he puts the skill set at the bottom of the page or somewhere where it is difficult to catch, then it’s a useless profile no matter how gloriously written. Skill sets, achievements in figures and actual impact are some of the things which should explode out from the document, the instant someone opens it.

In conclusion, CV writers in Pakistan have a long way to go, but the market is now open for change as more and more people are trusting this method of getting their profiles written. Let's hope that his industry booms and the profession of CV writing becomes a good option for people with good writing and research skills.