Once you have made the decision to get your CV made over, there is a fairly bewildering range of choices available to you. This short article is designed to give you some options to choose the very best option for you. In the end, the decision you make now is likely to effect your whole career so choose wisely

There are many alternatives available to you. You could do it yourself or you could use one of many CV services available in the UK. Some are clearly better than others and the purpose of this small guide is to help you choose a path

At the most basic level, some companies will offer to do nothing more than type up your CV. Whilst this is better than doing it yourself (at least they spell check it), they end up churning out CVs that all look the same. This can be a significant disadvantage to you as whilst they do look OK, they miss most of the layout, insight and information contained within a professional CV. The advantage is that they are cheap and can often be rushed out in a hurry

Somewhere in the middle is the recruitment company or individual that has contacts in HR or who has recently lost their job in HR and is looking to supplement their redundancy before going back into full time work. Whilst these sort of services can offer a decent enough product at the end, they are not professional CV writing services and therefore you lose out on the continuity that you might get from using a more professional service. They are, again, of use to someone on a budget that wants a bit more than a cheap word processing service

Professional CV writing services sit at the very top end of the scale. Whilst they may not be the cheapest option, the cost is barely significant compared with the additional salary that employing their services attracts on average. If you are at the middle to high end of the career bracket, they are definitely worth considering. For less than 200, you will get a CV that should be guaranteed to get you an interview

You probably guessed that I would always suggest that you use a professional CV writing service. However they are not all created equally. Ask about their track record. What is the ratio of CVs written to interviews gained. In the interview its down to you but having that professional CV ready for distribution can really open some doors for you

Guarantees are sometimes not worth the paper that they are written on. This is no different when talking about a CV than when buying a television. What does stand comparison though is that some companies won’t guarantee their work- if they won’t, why not. Give some brownie points to the companies that offer you a guarantee- they are taking the risk so let them

You really do need to be working with companies who employ their CV writers. Sub contracted consultants might be good for the company but they are hardly going to push the boat out for you especially when they are paid so poorly. Look for companies that employ their people- they are more motivated and the job just gets done that much better

About the author: Mr. Hughes owns and operates a CV writing service located in the UK. Part of a team of CV writers assisting people to get a better career