Let me tell you a secret. Most of the resume writers you deal with don’t live in your area. Most don’t live in your city (unless you live in Sydney or Melbourne).

I live in Adelaide (have done for the last ten years) and we have a house at Kiama, where I spent much of summer (with plenty of flights back to Adelaide).

Most resume writers ‘trick’ Google to say their offices are in Adelaide or Wollongong or Geelong. When in truth, they know nothing about the employment conditions of those areas.

That’s because they work out of an office in George Street, Sydney or the dodgy end of Collins Street in Melbourne. They don’t specialise in geographic areas. They think employment and unemployment conditions are the same, across Australia. No wonder it’s like burning $100 notes when people use their services.

I worked for the Department of Employment in Canberra and specialised in knowing the employment markets in South Australia and NSW, especially the cities and major towns.

I studied the rise of services such as health and education and the decline of manufacturing. It was my job to know where the jobs were – and how to get them. I lived and talked with people in Adelaide, Port Augusta, Whyalla, Renmark, Mount Gambier, Batemans Bay, Ulladulla, Kiama, Wollongong, Port Kembla and more.

Something to think about next time you’re looking for a resume writer,