The following article was originally included in a Career Tips booklet Steve published for service leavers back in 1998, and has been adapted as a Serious Wealth Warning message on the Top Pro website. When you start doing the math, as our US Cousins would say, it is quite staggering, indeed frightening, how much money we can lose by doing half a job on our career change preparation. In particular, having a CV prepared by a cut-price merchant, or worse doing the job yourself, can prove to be incredibly expensive and bad judgement in the end. I know you will be thinking hes bound to say that he wants to sell me a CV!, but just work the figures out for yourself. Take out a calculator and get your latest salary statement. Go on, get them now and work it through. Most job seekers take an average of 120 - 180 days to find a job. Don't take my word for it, ask any employment consultant or agency. Or use the Governments own figures (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/CCI/nugget.asp?ID=12). In terms of lost income, if you earn an average of let's say 50 per day (VERY conservative for Professional Clients), you would lose 6000 - 9000 over that period. Use your own figures to confirm this. Add to this the cost Of living through the same period, and then the month working before you get your next salary injection, and you are looking at, conservatively, the thick end of 10000 to 15000 (yes, thats ten to fifteen THOUSAND POUNDS) loss to you and yours in the time it takes to sign up for a quick and easy resume or CV by one of the hundreds of companies peddling their wares in the marketplace. It takes about 30 seconds to sign up for these services. If you make the wrong choice it may take months to get back on track. First of all, in say 2 - 4 weeks, realisation dawns. The CV or Resume you have bought (or worse written yourself!) is just not up to the job, just isn't cutting it. Maybe you spent 40 - 60 getting it done (some companies charge even less!). Even if you used a credible company that offers a worthwhile guarantee you will now have to go through the exercise again and either spend the same or more (if you have got the message by now) to get a proper job done by somebody else. Or you will go through a rewriting exercise with the same company that provided the weak CV or Resume in the first place. In the meantime, of course, the 'ideal' job you were chasing originally has probably already gone. So now you are starting the entire process all over again and the clock is still ticking relentlessly on. No money is coming in. Can you really afford to keep on keeping on? Do yourself and your family a favour. Do the job once. Read the testimonials here if you are still in doubt: http://www.top-pro-cvs.co.uk/wealthwarn.html and http://www.top-pro-cvs.co.uk/ourclients.html Good Luck! |
