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 “he’s bound to say that – he wants to
sell
me a CV (Resume)!”, 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 Government’s 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, that’s 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
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