Marty Weitzman was not worth the $700 I paid. I feel I was taken advantage of at a vulnerable point in my life.
I hired him over a year ago, while trying to transition out of a bad situation. Company wasn't doing well and was losing accounts to competitors. Every week my manager would ask how many new accounts I had for that week. But I was the youngest on the team... and my assigned territory kept shrinking. All the biggest brokers were taken by more senior colleagues... and I was left with the smallest revenue clients (and furthest away). I knew the writing was on the wall so I did everything I knew at that time to transition out. For a couple of months, I walked into the building terrified it was going to be my last day. ie Monday morning: "they're going to fire me today"; Monday evening: "whew... I made it another day... but they're going to fire me tomorrow..."
Try living in that state of mind for months... I wasn't sleeping well and didn't do anything fun or social. I cut all expenses and saved every penny.
I desperately applied to as many jobs as I could. But I wasn't getting many responses so I thought I'd be smart and hire a resume writer. (I was also working with a career coach at that time... more on that later)
Marty's internet-presence was pretty good so I called him and did a phone interview. He's a smooth talker, older than me, and used fancy business-speak, so I bought into it. Especially when he remarked "I'm kind of a big deal" in the resume world. (If you have street-smarts your alarm bells would be ringing... but alas, I was very naive back then)
Sent him my resume, job description, college transcript, etc. Then waited for his one-week processing time. During that week, I also tried making updates and learning about the process. At the end of the week, he sent me the 1st draft (and I sent him my suggestions). Then we had the 2nd and last call. In his fast-pace/manic way of speaking, he proceeded to tell me that what he sent me was just a 1st draft, and that it was difficult for him to find accurate descriptions about my job on google. He then LOUDLY scolded me for even trying to make edits on my own: "YOU did that version, NOT me" and he hung up on me. That was the last I heard from him.
Excuse me, but I paid you considerable amount of money to help me polish my resume. You said you were a "big deal" and then you angrily told me that a google search couldn't find a good job description?! Had I known you were going to use google search, I would've of hung up on you during the initial interview.
The truth is, today's job search is much more complicated and nuanced than you can imagine. Hiring a resume writer is just one small portion of the overall process. You need to have a system for: research, informational interview, networking, positioning, resume writing, interviewing, negotiating. Some good resources: Ramit Sethi, Darrel Gurney, Nicholas Lore, Richard Bolles.
I truly hope that your experience with Marty was different. But he was not able to help me and actually left me in a worse point. And I was actually way too depressed + stressed to defend myself. read more