“The buyer has need of a hundred eyes, the seller of but one.”
— old proverb
“The buyer has need of a hundred eyes, the seller of but one.”
— old proverb
I’m no longer taking on new projects. But read on for a bit.
If you’re in a hurry, and you’re shopping for résumé services or anything else related to job-hunting, you ARE going to get screwed, unless you slow down and do some learning before you shop. No exceptions. Start your learning here.
Bookmark this page and save it with your job-search resources. I think you’ll be glad you did.
This site still contains some very scarce, very valuable, honest, real-world information about creating and using résumés. Check out the Résumé Realities articles linked below. Start with “The Worst Way To Shop For Résumé Services”, because that’s probably what you’re doing. The information on this site will change the way you look at résumés and job-hunting. It could save you hundreds of dollars. And it could save your job search.
I didn’t do things the way other résumé writers did. As far as I know, the service I offered was unique. Throughout my sixteen years in the résumé business, I felt that my approach was validated by the sort of customer feedback you’ll see on the Testimonials page.
I started each résumé project with in-depth, individually-developed interviewing—typically three hours for senior clients. The interviews were so thorough, detailed, and individualized that they taught my clients, by example, about how to think about and present their own skills and experience. One client called it “résumé therapy.”
The interview questions, and my final presentation, were based on a total information strategy, and many years of professional writing craftsmanship. That information-based approach enabled me to create résumés that could open doors that other résumés could not—making the points that need to be made at every stage of the hiring process, from the first screening to the final short‑list.
Years of technical production experience enabled me to produce electronic résumé documents that could be handled without problems by employers, that would look as intended on any employer’s computers (most résumés don’t), and that would skip through the automated résumé-processing minefield that kills or cripples most electronic résumés. Very few résumé writers have ever had this knowledge.
Plus, I was there for my clients after their résumés were done—for questions, technical or otherwise, about using the documents I sent them.
My thanks and best regards to all my clients, and best wishes to all who take the time and effort needed to conduct an effective job search.
—Ken Dezhnev
RÉSUMÉ REALITIES
Résumés are one of those products for which the ignorance of the consumer is the most important factor in the market. With most such products, the problem is just the general public’s lack of information about a specialized subject. With résumés, it’s worse. There’s an exceptional amount of misinformation about résumés, and much of it is echoed by supposedly authoritative sources, not to mention your friends, relatives, and co‑workers.
There’s a lot of information for you on this site. It’s in several sections, described below. Farther down on this page the contents of each is listed, with direct links to each topic.
TIPS & MYTHS
Start with this section. It will change the way you think about résumés. It includes a selection of “Killer Myths”—common myths about résumés that can wreck your job search even if you do everything else right. And don’t miss the “#1 Résumé Tip”, to learn why there’s a whole world of misinformation out there about anything that pertains to finding a job.
THE WORST WAY TO SHOP FOR RÉSUMÉ SERVICES
(Phone calls are the LAST step, not the first.)
RÉSUMÉ ENCYCLOPEDIA
Discussions of a number of basic résumé topics—especially questions about terminology, types of resumés, document formats, and résumé-related technology. Resume terminology can be confusing and inconsistent, not to mention that some of it is meaningless hype. Technology is a much more important aspect of résumés than most job-hunters realize, and we cover the basics here.
SOME FAVORITE QUOTES
These were formerly scattered around this site when it was much more extensive.
(on résumé writing, job-hunting, and life in general)
The sage does first, when it is easiest, what the thoughtless does last, when it is hardest.
—collision between an Italian proverb and Lao Tze ch. 64
“Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.”
—attributed to Lao Tze
A good expression of a key aspect of his thought (see chapters 38, 63, 64), but probably not a direct translation of any of his words.
(on résumés—and any product or service that would be missed if it didn’t exist)
“Form follows function, function creates form.”
— Louis Sullivan, American architect,
in “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered” (1896)
(on research—and what generally passes for research)
“If one see the ground first, without adequate study of the map, one is very apt to miss something important.”
— Captain B.H. Liddell Hart, soldier, strategist, and military historian
“Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.”
—Francis Bacon, Novum Organum
(This is the principle behind modern experimental scientific method, which Bacon is widely credited with having formulated, and which he certainly formulated in more detail, and to greater effect, than anyone previously.)
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
— Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles
“Facts are ventriloquist’s dummies.
Sitting on a wise man’s knee they may
be made to utter words of wisdom;
elsewhere, they say nothing,
or talk nonsense.”
— Aldous Huxley,
(Time Must Have a Stop, 1945)
(on writing)
It is not enough to write to be understood clearly.
You must write so that you cannot be misunderstood.
— after a phrase in a technical bulletin, ca. 1917
“Master your subject. Then the words will come.”
— Cato the Elder, 234–149 B.C., “the virtual founder of Latin prose literature,” written to his son.
“Blot out, correct, insert, refine,
Enlarge, diminish, interline;
Be mindful, when invention fails,
To scratch your head, and bite your nails.”
— Jonathan Swift
“What you keep out is just as important as what you put in.”
— Marcella Hazan, on cooking.
Her recipes were often very simple indeed; one tomato sauce recipe has three ingredients. In other words, knowledge, experience, and technique are as important as ingredients.
Long copy sells more than short copy.
— David Ogilvy, founder of Ogilvy & Mather,
on the occasion of his induction into the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame
(on the résumé and job-search services business in general)
“A game [such as high-stakes gambling] which tends to encourage self-policing is less populated by crooks than a game which tends to lull chumps into unwariness.”
— John Scarne, Scarne on Cards.
“The mass of men are very easily imposed on. They have their runways in which they always travel and are sure to fall into any pit or trap which is set there.”
—Thoreau, Wild Fruit
“Propaganda ... serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.”
—Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
Propaganda: “That branch of the
art of lying which consists in very
nearly deceiving your friends without
quite deceiving your enemies.”
— F.M. Cornford, classical scholar and
historian of philosophy
(Microcosmographia Academica,
preface to the 1922 ed.)
(on the persistence of myths and misinformation about résumés)
“That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die.”
—H.P. Lovecraft
“The man who sees two or three
generations is like someone who
sits in a conjurer’s booth at a fair and
sees the tricks two or three times.
They are meant to be seen only once.”
— Arthur Schopenhauer,
(Studies in Pessimism)
“I don’t know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
—variously attributed
“When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”
— Eric Hoffer
“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.… Besides, we may chance to hit upon some other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious to Mr. Lestrade.”
— Sherlock Holmes, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery”
“It is better to know less than to know so much that ain’t so.”
—Josh Billings (American humorist)
(from my old Services & Prices page)
“Variations on a waltz for pianoforte alone for the price of 30 ducats in gold, that is Viennese ducats.… Bagatelles or trifles for pianoforte alone, price upon request.… A song with pianoforte 8 ducats. For an elegy for four voices with accompaniment of 2 violins, viola and violoncello the price is 24 ducats. For a chorus of Dervishes with full orchestra 20 ducats.”
— Beethoven, quoting prices to music publisher C.F. Peters (June 5, 1822).
“The buyer has need of a hundred eyes, the seller of but one.
But dash my vig, they require the seller to make up in tongue what he economises in wision.”
— John Jorrocks, in R.S. Surtees, Handley Cross (1843)
early adopter (n) guinea pig
—Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary of Information Technology (19th ed., 2025)