Note: I did not receive this service for free in exchange for a review, but paid for it myself. I’m writing this because I think it would be useful for everyone to get an idea of how the service is like before deciding to buy it. 🙂
Should you pay someone to professionally write your resume for you?
I asked myself this as a graduate, and I constantly ask myself this throughout my career, especially when looking for a new job.
After trying out TopResume’s free resume review service, I decided to go for their paid resume writing services and document my full experience in this article.
Is TopResume worth it? Here’s my detailed TopResume review in full!
TopResume price tiers: what I went for, and what I’d recommend
TopResume offers 3 price tiers of service.
If you decide to go for it, I recommend either one of the top two options: Career Evolution or Executive Priority. I think the extras are worth it (as explained further below) – if you are going to do this, do it right.
I chose the Executive Priority package (most expensive) for my rewrite. My reasons for choosing this package over the lower-priced ones are:
- LinkedIN Makeover – LinkedIN is really important to being hired these days, and I think having someone to properly look at and rewrite my profile is invaluable.
- Better writers – Executive Priority and above gets writers in the top 10%. Again, I prefer that the better writers are allocated to me. Of course this could be 100% bullshit, but I don’t think so – it’s in their interest to keep their higher-paying customers happy.
- Cover letter – I didn’t think that I would appreciate this, but in the end it was great getting something that helps word your introductory emails, even if you don’t actually attach a separate cover letter. And because I’m looking at switching to a new role type, it was useful to get specific wording that conveys that in a fast and effective manner.
What happens in a TopResume review process?
Once you make your order, the process is quite straightforward.
- First, you’ll be presented with a questionnaire to fill out.
- Then, you’ll need to upload your resume, if you haven’t already. I didn’t need to as I had previously done so via the initial free resume review I got from them.
- You’ll need to complete the questionnaire before they can assign a writer to you.
- Next, you’ll receive an email with next steps and timelines. I was told that the first draft would be received 5-7 days after completion of the questionnaire, but mine took about 10 days, so I’d not rely too strongly on their timeline estimates.
- Next, I’ll go through what they sent through, and my experience of the revision process.
The resume
The resume I received has completely been rearranged and rewritten from my version.
I really liked having a more marketing-based mind go through my resume and make changes and suggestions.
Of course, you don’t have to accept everything they suggest, but on the whole I found the changes quite sensible and agreeable.
Here are the main changes made to my resume during the rewrite, as well as bits I particularly liked. Of course, individual experiences may vary!
- Keyword-based profile summary: Not everyone may have this, but I had a summary section right at the start of my resume, explaining who I was and what my experience was about. The rewrite enhanced this, not just by rewriting the section but also including bullet points of my key skills. This made the section a lot faster to digest and also came across as more impressive, as the eye automatically is drawn to the bulleted list of key skills.
- Experience comes first: I’m not sure why now, but I had my education right at the front (probably because I was super-proud of my CFA qualification). The rewrite moved the education bit to the back, clearly formatted in a different manner.
- Serif formatting: I chose sans serif originally due to clear readability, but perhaps serif conveys a stronger, more senior feel.
- Less focused on structure: I’m a maths major. I was obsessed with getting everything to line up neatly on my resume, so tab spacing and bullets were everywhere. The rewrite used a more organic arrangement that still retained the information but freed up more space.
- Streamlined for snappiness: I’ve never known what to not include in my resume, so I’ve tried to pile on all the projects and deals I’ve been involved in. The rewrite cut out some of the less important stuff and focused on what they called ‘key accomplishments’, which is a phrase I like because it simultaneously conveys ‘there’s more besides what’s on here’, and ‘this stuff is awesome, it’s a key accomplishment!’.
- Condensed earlier work experiences: My resume grew organically as my work experienced increased, so I never really thought to significantly rework my earlier, graduate-level work experiences. The rewrite downsized this to an ‘Other Experiences’ section, making room for extra bragging about my more recent achievements.
- Cut out a complete section: I had a ‘Key Skills and Achievements’ section, which in retrospect is probably duplicated throughout the rest of the resume. This is now cut, with the information dispersed throughout the rest of the resume.
- A tagline for each company I worked in: The rewrite also added in a snazzy tagline for each of the different companies I’ve worked in, explaining what the company is and why the company is impressive. I’ll try to give you some examples based on my limited marketing skills:
- a large bank might get a line like ‘One of the most influential financial institutions in the market, with its investment banking division responsible for over $XXBN worth of deals annually’.
- A small hedge fund, on the other hand, might get ‘A world-leading long-short fund, Company X charted YY% growth for the past Z years consecutively, and is a five-time winner of Award ABC’.
You can see that the focus has been very much on increasing the attractiveness of the resume – making everything more readable, more eye-catching, and the content more impressive.
That was just what a boring finance guy like me needed – a marketing person to look through everything and see what would sell. Of course, your writer’s knowledge of your industry would be limited, and that’s where your feedback is important.
The cover letter
I was never really expecting much from the cover letter – I’ve not really included one in my job applications since my grad days.
The cover letter I received is a compact, one-page cover letter consisting of three paragraphs:
- The first paragraph focusing on the objectives – introducing myself with an effective summary, what role I’m interested in
- The second paragraph is the longer one, showing off my achievement and skills, with a few headlines thrown in
- The final paragraph attempts to elicit action items – set up a meeting, view the attachments, and so on
I don’t think the cover letter is good enough to just drop in [Job Title] and [Company Name] and so on and simply send out. But then, I don’t think such a letter exists.
What I do think the written cover letter is good for, though, is to act as a starting template for whenever I need to use any kind of introductory text, which is need for almost any job application – be it through email or through a more standard electronic form.
I think the cover letter I received is a pretty good base to start with, where I can update, change and swap out as needed.
The LinkedIN makeover
I was curious to see how they’d execute the LinkedIN makeover – I’d rather not hand over control of my LinkedIN account, and turns out that’s not how they do it anyway.
What they do is to send you a 10-page personalized “idiot’s guide” to LinkedIn, showing you exactly how to populate and tune your LinkedIn profile. The guide is personalized to you where the fields are pre-filled in with information from your experience.
The mileage you get from this, I suspect, will vary.
If you’re constantly updating your LinkedIN profile and know all the latest features to really publicize yourself just that little bit more, the LinkedIN makeover is probably not going to tell you anything new apart from provide you from new copy to use on your profile.
While I found some of the tips rather obvious, others were useful – recommendations on how to present more dated work experience and education. But on the whole, the tips are probably not worth the price, at least to me.
The most valuable part of the LinkedIN makeover for me was the copy provided for the Summary and Work Experience sections, which is always the part I’m too lazy (and self-conscious) to write and brag about.
So, is TopResume worth it?
The guidelines they email to you say that you get 2 revision rounds once the first draft is sent, but on their FAQ they state that “you will go back and forth with your writer on drafts until both of you are happy with the final result”, which implies unlimited revisions.
So which is which?
My guess is that they most likely will revise as much as you need, but also want to weed out abuse from endlessly revising clients.
Apart from minor adjustments, my overall feel was that the first draft good, but still not specific enough.
I fed this back to my writer, encouraging her to ask me for more detail if she needed it. I answered her follow-up questions and was resent a second draft.
After the second draft, I decided not to revise any further.
Overall, I found Topresume’s revisions useful, but only to a certain extent. The first draft probably gets to the 75% mark, and a revision to 80-85%, but no further.
But I don’t think it’s TopResume’s fault.
A resume is, in essence, a very personal document. I don’t think a third party can truly deliver a resume 100% to your satisfaction, but they do wonders to improve your resume from 30% to 85%.
After one revision, I think the best person to finalize the work and add the last touch-ups is myself. No writer can know the intricacies of my industry, use the right technical terms, and tune it exactly to the role I’m targeting.
Using a paid resume service was worth it for me
It’s difficult to recommend something with a price tag, as everyone will value this differently.
Personally, I think it’s a good investment every 5-10 years or so.
Times change, and the customs and technology around how a resume is viewed and evaluated changes as well. It’s useful to have someone look over your resume and to have a more marketing-focused angle layered upon it.
Think of it like plumbing maintenance that you have to do for your career.
As to whether it’s worth a few hundred dollars, that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself. Like I mentioned earlier, you may be able to get discounted pricing if you first get a free resume review. I was offered a discount via email a few days after I got my resume review.
However, you shouldn’t be doing this just to avoid working on your resume yourself.
You will need to be involved in the process to have good results – you will not be satisfied if you’re expecting your resume to float away, magically have a makeover and come back all shiny and perfect.
So my overall conclusions are:
- I think a resume rewrite is worth it, and particularly recommend the Executive Priority package.
- Even if you’re unsure, at the very least get the free resume review – it will definitely help.
- Don’t expect the experience to absolve you of any resume-related work, you’ll need to feedback and edit to get a great resume.
- The rewrite can take longer than estimated – don’t start this rewrite under time pressure or rush it.
Using a paid resume service: Tips for getting best results
Be reactive and give clear feedback
I honestly found the service valuable.
However, in the process of writing this article, I looked up for other TopResume reviews.
While I did find great reviews about them that agreed with me, there were also many who were critical about them – saying that the rewrites they got back were generic or unusable.
But closely reading their frustrations showed that the most frequent complaint was that ‘the resume I got was not what I wanted‘.
That’s a common thing when it comes to any creative services.
Managing a creative process requires a lot of good feedback from the client, whether it is drawing, writing or designing.
At the end of the day, TopResume does not know you personally, so there is a limit to what they can write for you if they don’t have enough information.
This is your resume, so the more involved you are, the better the result. Some tips on giving good feedback:
- Remember to give good and clear feedback, both focusing on what you like and what needs rewriting.
- Use email and/or Word comments, and be as detailed as your time allows you.
- Patient with following up.
- Treat your writer as a colleague in a collaborative process.
- Reply as soon as you can to emails if you have any concerns – before your writer starts making changes based on wrong assumptions
My ideal experience would be for my writer to chat to me for an hour or so about my work experience, diligently take notes, go away and come back with a perfect resume – but even then I’m pretty sure proper feedback along the way is necessary.
Continue to build on your resume after the rewrite
It’s really best to view your rewritten resume as a ‘nearly-there’ base to work from.
You should always review your resume and cover letter before applying for any role, tweaking it as necessary, and updating it as you accumulate more work experience.
Remember that this is just one step of getting hired
There’s a tendency to put too much effort into just your resume, and ignore that job-hunting also requires a lot of good networking and interview skills.
Be sure to always focus on maintaining good professional relationships and practice interviewing – you’ll need to rely on them as much as having a good resume.
Discounts…?
I’m not quite sure how it works, but you may be able to get discounted pricing if you first get a free resume review.
I was offered a discount a few days after I got my resume review – and I took them up on it.
If you’d like to try looking out for a discount, try going for a free resume review first, and watch your inbox for a few days after you’ve gotten your resume review.
I hope this review helped inform you if you’re considering using TopResume’s writing service. I’ve tried to be as detailed as I can without revealing personal details, but I’m happy to answer if you have any questions, just drop a comment below!
Meanwhile here are some related articles that may be of interest:
Please don’t make my mistake and try to work with TOP RESUME,
I went for their top package (350$) for resume cover Leeds and linkedin profile.
And I literally instructed them on what I needed for my resume and cover letter, what I have received was a pure rubbish and I really doubt if they have been in this industry, you can use CHATGPT and get a better result.
DONT DO MY MISTAKE AND WASTE YOUR MONEY
Hi Abubakr, I have passed your contact details to our Topresume contact who will reach out and review your case. So far they have been responsive and usually provide refunds if you’re not happy and if justified. Let me follow up with them on this.
This company is a pure waste of time, energy and money. They’re a special kind of scammers. All they did was add some words and charged me $150 for it. I told them, as a customer, I’m not satisfied and would like a refund or half price. They completely ignored my messages. They keep sending me messages to match me with another poor writer. Terrible terrible company. It’s very clear that they’ rather be scammers. Beware and don’t be fooled by them. I learned the hard way and didn’t look at reviews beforehand. Any positive reviews anywhere isn’t real. They find random people to pay to put up fake reviews.
Hi Akua, that’s shocking to hear, I’ll pass your comment and contact details to TopResume so that they can reach out directly to rectify matters.
Hi Akua Addo, I have heard back from Topresume who said that your case was reviewed recently given your refund request. They stated that their editorial team conducted a full review into the order and refused to refund based on the feedback. I am in the midst of delving into this further and the reasons. I’ll get back to you.
Avoid this company. I bough their top level package that includes resume, generic cover letter, and LinkedIn profile, written by one of their “top 10% writers”. The result were poorly written, generic documents. When I reached out and asked for a refund, they only offered to match me with another writer. I pointed out that I had already paid for one of their top writers, and that the documents were useless. But this was to no avail. No refund, just a lot of messages back and forth. This may not be a scam, but an utterly useless service. Chat GPT will write a better resume for you than Top Resume.
Hi Christian, that’s shocking to hear as well, I’ll pass your comment and contact details to TopResume so that they can reach out directly to rectify matters.
Hi Christian, I’ve heard back from Topresume but they couldn’t locate your case with the email you commented on. Can you email us directly with your email address that you signed up with TopResume?
The big thing that is left out of this review is that TopResume has a No Refund policy. That should tell you all you need to know about any service. While I think their free review is worthwhile, I do not recommend their paid service. I paid extra to supposedly get one of their top writers. Like most of the other reviewers, what I got in return was a bloated, generic mess. Furthermore, the writer either ignored or didn’t read my initial survey notes then didn’t want to make adjustments based on my feedback. Bottom Line: There’s no getting around doing your resume yourself. Do your research, use AI to help you reword things, and use automated ATS tools. Don’t count on a professional writer to give you anything more than a generic, jargon-filled mess. And if you still insist on hiring a resume service, hire an individual with good reviews who does not have a No Refund policy.
I submitted my original nursing resume which was nine pages as I am a travel nurse and have 13-week contracts for the last 10 years including seven more years of Nursing when I asked for my resume to be formatted to ATS format and so that it would upload easier into online application my resume was cut down to two pages and a lot of my jobs were completely left off the resume. Corporate White Collar jargon that has nothing to do with my field. I have gotten no responses and the resume is awful. I gave up on the person who is editing it. A waste of my money
Gee, I had seen some 4+ star reviews for TopResume online and went with it. Unfortunately my experience with them wound up being more along the lines of my fellow CFA holders/hopefuls as outlined here.
Not sure what the affiliation between TopResume and 300Hours is given mikey’s article and some of Sophie’s comments underneath, however I personally don’t recommend using their services. My experience involved paying them a fee for a service, never receiving that service (not even a poor quality attempt at the service), and after finally just requesting a refund being bounced around the customer service team so they could avoid paying it (still haven’t received it and even if I do it won’t be the full amount I paid). The whole thing seemed like a scam to me.
Hi Jesse, thanks for sharing your feedback with us. Mikey did try them out personally for his CV and seem to like it, and it seems like lately their quality – at least from our readers review/comments here – have gone down.
We will feed this back to them directly. Thanks for letting us know and keeping these guys on their toes!
I wish I would have read these reviews before I paid for their service. The writer produced an unusable CV, and when I gave my comments and asked for revisions, it was clear that the writer did not look at the comments because I wrote very specific comments in the draft. The service is a waste of money. The writer clearly had no idea about how to compose an academic CV in my area and did not even look at successful examples as a model. They clearly copied and pasted generic language that was outdated. I googled the phrasing that they used, and it was clearly stolen and plagiarized. Huge Waste of Money!!!!!! The writer was not receptive to my comments and is making it difficult to make revisions. The response they sent me read like a bot-composed message.
I got a free resume review from Top Resume and they fed it into their bots and told me I was underselling my 9 years of experience and middle-managment leadership experience….
I have over 20 years of experience and own an international business, and that is on top of my experience a regional HR consultant for a multi-million dollar organization with direct impact on 400+ retail locations.
The bots apparently can’t read all that well. Hopefully it’s not all bots and just these that completely ignore international work…but just in case, I will continue to steer my own ship and reach out to hiring managers directly as often as possible.
I had the exact same experience! It was terrible. The writer was clearly not a native English speaker. Their website has a fraudulent and misleading marketing which is illegal stating “double the interviews guaranteed.” I reached out multiple times and got no response. I have photographs of their website, fraudulent guarantee, and misleading marketing. This is disgusting and the fact that they have not been shut down is incredible.
I regret paying for their service. The resume they provided was pretty much unusable. It was poorly formatted, full of nonsense, and full of spelling errors. Their cover letter was simply copy and pasted from a template. They are providing their clients a disservice by wasting their time and money! They refused to provide a refund, so now I’m in the process of completing a chargeback. Just avoid!
Top Resume claims to be number one resume writing service and after hiring them I’m appalled by their lack of quality work and extemely poor customer service. I paid for a rush order and unfortunately I got just that, a rushed product that turned to be an extemely similar copy of my own rough draft. Experience gets worse from here as I’ve written specific request and asked questions that were ignored completely until I started submitting negative reviews and asking for a refund. The support team came back to me and said I couldn’t have a refund and never even told me why. Don’t boast about being number one and offering these incredible services if you can’t back it up.
Cut and paste + plagiarism + excuses = Fake Resume
I had high hopes for this company based on the abundance of positive reviews here on Trustpilot. However, those reviews must be paid for, fake, or from people who just don’t know better. I purchased the top tier package (Executive Priority Resume) which is supposed to be completed by the top 10% of the company’s writer network. Things started out on the right track when a writer was assigned the same day and that writer quickly delivered the first draft within 24 hours. Unfortunately, this was the only positive experience I had with them. The resume they sent me was simply a reformat of what I sent them to use to draw from with some added fluff. They literally cut and pasted sections of my original work and then plagiarized some fluff from various LinkedIn profiles. The cover letter they wrote was even worse! The entire cover letter was plagiarized from LinkedIn profiles with a few bullet points included that were cut from my original resume and did not make sense. There were grammatical errors throughout the resume and cover letter and neither was an improvement from the originals I submitted. The first draft was refused and suggestions were given for improvement. The writer assured me he would rewrite it and do it quickly. almost 6 days later I received the second draft back of the resume only, nothing had changed except for one bullet point. Upon receipt of this second draft, I reached out to the customer service number directly. I spoke to a gentleman who tried to explain away the plagiarism and assure me that a second writer would solve the problem. This writer would be a senior writer and would work with me until I was satisfied. Apparently, the original writer I was given was not in the top 10% of their network although that is what I paid for. After some back and forth I reluctantly agreed to wait for the second writer and gave TopResume 48 hours to find the writer that was a good match for my industry, career level and language. TopResume missed the mark and just kept coming up with excuses about why it was going to take longer and longer to find a writer. They refused to refund my money, they stole other people’s intellectual property, fraudulently created a fake resume and cover letter with fake qualifications, and never delivered the LinkedIn profile update. Their writers are not as experienced as they claim. They are not an ethical company and need to be shut down. I do not recommend them even for an entry-level resume. If you have worked with them in the past, take your resume and run it through a free plagiarism checker online and see for yourself. Don’t be fooled by them, the good reviews are fake, and the bad ones are the real reviews. DO NOT USE THIS FAKE RESUME-WRITING COMPANY
Hi Joshua, gosh, what a terrible experience you had. We will feed this back to TopResume ourselves as well as this wasn’t what Mike experienced himself, granted this was a few year ago. I’ll circle back when I hear back.
These scumbags continue to refuse to refund the money and never provided a resume. It’s been well over a month now since I nievely purchased thier services.
They need to be shut down. A simple search of the company’s parent company “Talent Worldwide Inc.” On the BBB website provides all the backup that this same exact experience has occurred to hundreds of people.
Hi Josh, we’ve reached out to Topresume themselves about your case and they asked for your email. Are you OK for us to pass it to them so that they can reach out to you to resolve this ASAP?
I ended up getting some action out of Chase by emailing the executives and Jamie Dimon directly using the contact information on a website called elliott.org
While they attacked this from their end I also blasted them publicly across multiple review websites like your, social media as well and the companies they use to advertise their services. They finally agreed to refund today and I can see the refund processing in my account so I no longer require assistance. I want to thank you for the steps you took to help remedy this situation.
Keep up the good work! Hopefully people will see the reviews I left up so they can avoid the headache I endured in the future. While unlikely, I also hope the leadership of Talent Inc. Take this as a learning experience and re-evaluate their business model.
That’s great, we have also heard back from our contacts at Topresume that they have provided a full refund in your case. We hope this is a catalyst for them to find out what went wrong and improve going forward. Sorry you didn’t get the same experience as Mikey in this case, who found it helpful in rejuvenating his resume.
Sophie and Josh,
I have exactly same experience with Topresume. Their writers are not experienced and not native English speakers. Disgustingly, this is not a company legitimately registered. There is no business registration number on the invoice. I currently have many emails with them and they are refusing to pay the money back. It is a waste of money and time. Their reviews are paid or fake reviews. A customer can’t write a review on their website. BE CAREFUL.
Hi Jac, that is disappointing to hear. I’ll reach out to TopResume (just like Josh’s case) for you to get this sorted. Bear with me.
Hi Jac, if you could email me sophie@300hours.com the email address you used for your Topresume account as they couldn’t find you in the system, this should be resolved.
hey josh, I was thinking of going forward with their services but after reading your review I’m thinking otherwise, as I’m still a fresher a I’m thinking of getting a proper resume review and rewrite can you suggest me the best service for that please
While I clicked on this review seeking information about TopResume specifically you have provided great tips generally. I may or may not subscribe to TopResumes’ service but most certainly will make updates to my CV myself based on your very generic albeit but great suggestions. Most important as you suggest is that you have to be responsible for your own resume, in the end, it is a snapshot of you professionally after all. I hope you do not mind, I would like to share this on my LinkedIn account for the reasons above.
TopResume is a waste of money. I had taken their executive resume package and felt as if a college student who has no idea on what entails professional life is documenting my resume. Also the service is so slow that you may get a job by the time they come back with your resume. Total waste of money and the quality is below par.
I tried this service and totally regret it. They didn’t really do anything! The finished resume looks terrible. I ended up just redoing it myself because I was so appalled at what I got even after revisions.