Avoid cvchecker.com, is it a scam?

becksyboy

I was duped by thie site (www.cvchecker.com) to have my CV assesed by their online assessment service. At a cost of £9.73 this is what they claim to offer:

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• Comprehensive review of your CV via email.
• Our email will not only contain valuable feedback on your CV but some good tips on how to write a good CV.
• You don't have to worry about writing anything down as you can re-read the email over and over.
• Follow the links from our email to our partners who provide excellent free CV distribution services.

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However this is futher from the truth!! Below is infact the reply i recieved, you can judge for your selves if this is what they said they would supply.

In my opnion it comes across like a template which you send out to everyone, and you are in fact giving very general advice. There is nothing in what they have written which can point to the fact that they have read my CV or anyone else's!! Not one point in the text below can show you they have read my CV.
This is a con; £9.73 for what exactly! Its fair to say you cannot re-write my CV for this amount and I would not expect that; or even provide a detailed point by point breakdown, but this is a fraud to just try and get people to pay for their other services.
I will actively advise my friends and colleagues to avoid this service, as it is a waste of money and completely misleading.

Below is the response i got back:
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Thank you for your purchasing CV Checker email review service.
My first impression when reviewing your CV is that there is not enough specific, targeted content here to sell you effectively to employers. For example, you say very little about how you will use your skills and personal traits to benefit the new employer.
Upon perusing your CV, I have outlined below my recommendations to you:
With as little as 10 seconds to impress the recruiter, your CV does not read at its best. If you wrote a company sales brochure, you would consider the first page the prime selling position. Likewise you must prioritise the content of your CV, detailing the salient points of most interest to your reader first.
Your CV should have a certain format. It should include a Profile, an Achievements section and an Employment Experience section. The employment experience section should include each of your employers' names and dates when you worked with them and a list of your achievements when in their employment.
You need to qualify and quantify each of your achievements by showing measurable results. Use STAR - Situation - Task - Action - Result - as a template for each of your bullet points.
Just because you have done a job for so many months or years means
nothing: what counts is results. Your duties are not results and what sells you are your achievements. Achievements are the best way of reflecting how good you are so demonstrate your unique contribution to a company.
You need to add many more active words including solved, performed, redirected, developed, implemented, sold, supervised, increased etc to create a positive impression.
Your CV has little to do with your past but should instead reflect your future potential.
My primary concern however, is how recruiters view you. As a recruiter I am investing in excess of £50,000 per annum on you and need to know what my return on investment will be. Therefore you must reflect performance results, your ability to influence the role and add value, as opposed to your job description.
Remember, your CV is your personal sales brochure and your key that unlocks the door to high quality interviews. Decisions to interview or reject candidates will be made on this document and in most instances, you will be pitched against a potentially vast number of other candidates. A former recruiter, my personal record was 324 applicants vying for one office position! This should lead you to question what sets your CV apart from so many other candidates with comparable experience. Effective communication and marketing skills, amongst others, may be drawn from your CV, so it is time you contributed more than your list of job responsibilities.
Take time, plan and prioritise the information you supply, with many recruiters having as little as 10 seconds to peruse your details, ensure they glean more information than your age, nationality and previous job description. Furthermore, wherever possible, write your CV when your career is flying. Everyone takes a knock from redundancy and other issues resulting in a new job search, confidence knocks can come across in your CV.
Remember whilst design is aesthetically pleasing, structure and content is what sells you.
Reflecting value for money, accomplishments, highlighting transferable skills, pre-empting the reader's objections and strengthening perceived weaknesses are all areas you are need to consider.
Recognising the importance of your Curriculum Vitae is half the battle won. Many employers pay large sums of money to recruit their future workforce you have only to invest in your CV.
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I hope you found my assessment and recommendations regarding your current CV helpful and constructive.
Your CV is too subjective and heavily influenced by your personal interests, prejudices and emotions, which will not engage Recruiters. We create an objective CV, measured by end results and written by Recruiters themselves.
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Pug4

(as we are all regularly informed, there is no such thing as a free lunch!) My advice mate is, if you can get to your local Jobcentre Plus, someone there should be able to direct you to an associated agency (Connexions etc) who will tend to do it f.o.c. The general cost tends to be the legwork from wherever to wherever, and don't forget to take with you a current or old CV, or some details of what you've been up to thus far. Good luck!

maninthestreet

Advice on CV writing is freely available elsewhere - there is no need to pay anybody for this advice.

DCFC79

Pug4 wrote: »

My advice mate is, if you can get to your local Jobcentre Plus, someone there should be able to direct you to an associated agency (Connexions etc) who will tend to do it f.o.c.

pug, connexions only deal with 13 to 19 year olds, so unless the OP is within that age range then he cant go to connexions

becksyboy

I have been contacted by cvchecker.com to discuss my concerns, so i will speak to them and give them a chance to explain. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding?
I've never paid for a CV type service throughout my career, but thought i would give it a go...hmmm

DCFC79

Id never apy for a cv checking service,