Beware of Resume-Writing Scams: Protect Your Career and Wallet

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A client was recently contacted by a “recruiter” about an attractive job opportunity.

Upon submitting their resume, the recruiter said it wasn’t “ATS compliant.” Of course, the recruiter knew a resume-writing service that could revise it. Urgently.

My client immediately contacted me.

This is never a message I like to receive. Did I do something wrong?

My spidey senses tingled.

· The resume I provided was properly formatted to “play nice” with ATS.

· The offer sounded too good to be true.

· Recruiters wouldn’t use term “ATS-compliant.”

Was this a ruse to sell unnecessary resume-writing services?

Further investigation turned up expert articles on recruiter scams, but they were mainly focused on phishing. I didn’t find anything on selling resume-writing services.

This got me thinking: was this really about resume writing?

Given that I eat, breathe, and sleep resume writing, it’s no surprise that my mind went there first.

But did this recruiter have a team of people writing resumes? Was there a business infrastructure producing actual products? Were these people so…