Every now and then I’ll get a curly one. One where the client or clients were not totally up front with what they wanted when I prepared the quote.

A husband and wife team in Adelaide sent me their old ‘executive’ resumes to be upgraded.

They worked as CFO and IT specialists. They both had good project management experience but not heaps of staff leadership.

One of the resumes needed a career history and the other needed more quantitative achievements. They both needed to be restructured and given more ‘sell’. I provided them with two quotes and they got back to me straight way with a ‘yes please’.

When we sent them the first draft, it came back with a series of directives in red of what they did and didn’t want.

Unbeknown to me, they were executive career changers who both wanted to apply for CEO jobs. They said the resumes they sent to me were not indicative of where their future career direction lay.

So I changed the quote from the mid $200s per resume to around $750 per resume.

The reason is that when executives change direction, we have to map over their experience and capabilities to ensure they are of an executive level.

This is the most complex task a resume writer does and its very, very time consuming (read: expensive).

It’s not a two or three draft job. It’s a six or seven draft project, which takes two to three weeks.

Most executives consult a career expert before they come to a resume writer. This couple hadn’t.

The client can make a terrible mistake thinking they are CEO material, when they’re not. They will get knock back after knock back – and then they’ll blame the resume writer!

I never heard from them again but I wish them well.