CV Service Costs

While the vast majority of CV companies should be able to help you boost your job prospects, some are undoubtedly better than others, and quality varies quite widely. The premise ‘you get what you pay for’ applies, but only to some extent. Some CV writing services start from as low as £50 while others rise to over £1000.

So is the £1000 service worth paying 20 times more than the £50 service?

The answer to this is that it is almost certainly worth more but not necessarily 20 times more. If you pay for a £50 service, you cannot realistically expect the quality of your CV to be that good. It is not uncommon for CV consultants to spend a minimum of 3-6 hours on each CV, and the best CV consultants may spend far longer, and are also well paid. Almost inevitably therefore, you are not going to get a top consultant, or a quality CV for £50. Even if you are lucky enough get an average consultant (rather than bog standard one), at that price they are hardly likely to devote much time to your CV. As a very general rule of thumb, if you pay less than £125 for a professional (non-student) CV then this probably means that either the consultant isn’t spending long enough on the CV, or he/she isn’t good enough to merit a decent wage, or both.

The exceptions to this are companies which advertise e.g. a £50 basic but are honest enough to say what work will be done (or rather won’t be done) for the £50. The better companies will give specifics and say e.g. only presentation is improved and there will be no changes to content for the £50. Some companies however seem to claim that you will get a top quality, all bells and whistles CV for £50 and that just isn’t realistic.

So is the £1000 service worth £1000?

Well this really depends on the company you choose and the job you seek. If the better quality CV gets you a better job then the £1000 is a good investment and should subsequently pay for itself over time, especially since a good CV can help you land better paid jobs, and not just once but over and over again. However you should be aware that price alone isn’t an accurate indicator. The most expensive services are not necessarily the best by any means. There are some excellent services who charge less, and some of the more expensive services are not as good as some that cost less.

So while price is one indicator of quality it is by no means definitive.

More to follow…