We tried TopResume's Resume Writing Service: Was it worth it?

If you’ve been looking into getting some professional help with your resume, you may have come across TopResume in your search. You may have also seen conflicting reviews about their resume writing service, some good and quite a few overwhelmingly negative.

In this article, we’ll dig deeper into TopResume and how its resume writing service works. Plus, I’ve tried the service myself so I’ll let you in on my full experience. 

Here's what we'll cover:

• What is TopResume?
• Is TopResume a reputable company? 
• How much does TopResume cost?
• How the TopResume resume writing service works
• Is TopResume really free? 
• My experience with the paid resume rewriting service
• Overall review of my TopResume experience
• Is TopResume worth the money?
• 3 TopResume alternatives

Let’s get started.

1. What is TopResume?↑

TopResume is a company that offers professional resume writing services, among other job search assistance such as cover letter writing, LinkedIn makeovers, and more. 

According to its website, TopResume has a team of professional writers with experience in human resources, career coaching, and job search strategy. While it has published profiles of its editorial team of three, it also says that it has over a thousand professional writers in 65 industries, though there’s no way to know who these writers are.

1.1 Is TopResume a reputable company?

Whether TopResume is a reputable company or not is up for debate. Its website does look quite legitimate and it has 3.9 stars on Trustpilot, with a vast majority of the reviews 5 stars. However, if you look up TopResume, you will find highly detailed negative reviews on Reddit and other forums. 

Later on in the article, we’ll dive deeper into the quality of service that TopResume offers and see whether the reviews have any merit.

1.2 How much does TopResume cost?

TopResume offers three standard resume writing packages, all of which include an ATS-optimized resume and a 60-day interview guarantee. As for the guarantee, it states that if you don’t get an interview with their resume within 60 days, then you can get a free rewrite.

Below is a more detailed look at the standard packages and their pricing:

• Starter ($149)
  • Includes an ATS-optimized resume
  • Career.io premium trial
  • 60-day interview guarantee 
• Premium ($219)
  • Includes an ATS-optimized resume
  • Career.io premium access
  • 60-day interview guarantee
  • Cover letter 
• Ultimate ($349)
  • Top 10% of writer network
  • Includes an ATS-optimized resume
  • Career.io premium access
  • 60-day interview guarantee
  • Cover letter 
  • LinkedIn makeover

Apart from these three standard packages, TopResume also offers the “Elite Executive Priority Package”.

Priced at $699, it’s targeted toward executives and includes the following:

• Professional resume
• Cover Letter
• 2-Day Delivery
• LinkedIn Makeover
• 2 Interview Prep Sessions
• 30-Day Career.io subscription

All TopResume packages can be paid in full or in monthly installments.

You also have the option to upgrade whichever package you choose by purchasing add-ons. These add-ons include a 48-hour delivery, phone consultation with your resume writer, interview coaching, and more. 

However, looking at their website, I couldn’t find any readily published information on how much any of the add-ons cost. You’ll only see this information once you’re at the end of the questionnaire, which is the first step after buying a package.

1.3 How the TopResume resume writing process works

According to the website, here’s how TopResume’s service works:

1. Fill in a questionnaire. After purchasing a package, you’ll be asked to answer a questionnaire. Some of the information you’ll be asked to provide includes your current resume, job listings that interest you, and details like your key strengths, major accomplishments, and job-search concerns.
2. Get matched with a writer. You’ll receive an email when you’ve been assigned a writer. You’ll also find this information on the website which you’ll get after purchasing a package. The writer assigned to you will base their resume rewrite on the questionnaire and your old resume if you have one. But if you want to talk directly to your writer by phone, that’s a separate add-on that you’ll need to purchase.
3. Get your first resume rewrite. Your first draft should arrive within 7 business days. If you want it sooner (within 48 hours), that’s yet another add-on you have to purchase. You can then give your feedback.  
4. Receive your revised resume. After sending over your revision notes, your resume writer should send your revised resume within a week. Your package should include at least 2 revisions.

1.4 Is TopResume really free?

TopResume’s resume writing services are not free. They do, however, offer a free resume review service. This is the first thing you’ll find when you land on their homepage.

We’ve already reviewed this free resume review service. We found that TopResume does provide detailed feedback via email, which could be useful if you’re looking for a way to improve your resume on a budget.

2. My experience with the paid TopResume rewrite↑

To give you a full review of TopResume’s paid resume service, I signed up for the most basic offering: the Professional Growth Resume Writing Package. 

For the test, I came up with a fictional product manager resume. I made it similar to the ones we often see from candidates using our resume coaching service. 

It could be the resume of someone who has some strong experience and wants to apply to a top company like Google or Meta. It’s of reasonable quality but I left plenty of room for improvement, as a way to test whether the TopResume rewrite would take it to the level necessary to get interview calls from top companies.

Step 1: Answer the TopResume Questionnaire

Upon purchasing a package, I received an email with the basic steps of the process. The first was to answer a questionnaire, which they’ve linked to in the email.

The first part of the questionnaire prompted me to upload my current resume. Can you use this service if you don’t have one just yet? Yes, you can proceed with the rest of the questionnaire if you tick the option “I don’t have a resume” at the bottom. For my purpose, I uploaded the fictional resume.

Then I was walked through several questions about the resume and my goals. Here are some of them:

• What is your biggest concern about your resume? (Dropdown menu with options: length, over or underqualified, employment gaps, layout, wording)
• What key strengths will you bring to your next role?
• What job listings interest you? 
• What industry or field are you interested in (dropdown of industries)
• Is there anything holding you back from landing a job in your preferred field?
• What unique skills and traits do you bring to the table? (accomplishments in each role)

This was a fairly straightforward process. It also allows you to click save and continue or go back to previous questions with the rest of your answers conveniently saved. 

At the end of the questions, I was asked if there’s anything else I wanted to add as a note to the writer. This is the part where you can make specific requests that the questionnaire might not have covered. For my purpose, I wrote: I’m applying to a few FAANG job openings and would like my resume to be competitive enough.

Afterwards, I was directed to a page where I could purchase add-ons.

Just a note about this that I found curious. If you’ll remember at the descriptions of the packages, the Starter Professional Growth Package is supposed to include a 60-day job interview guarantee. But I found that it’s included in the optional add-ons, which means it’s not yet a part of the package.

I find this misleading, as the website clearly states that the package I bought already includes the 60-day guarantee.

After I submitted everything, I had to sign up for a profile on the website. For this, I just needed to fill in a password and was directed to this page:

Step 2: Get matched with a writer

An hour and a half after filling out the resume, I received a quick intro email from my writer, Leena (we’ve changed her name to protect her privacy). No info on her background, just a note telling me that she’ll be working on my resume.

Step 3: Receive the first draft

Surprisingly, I received the first resume draft the day after I filled in the questionnaire. Based on the time stamps of the emails from TopResume, it didn’t even take 24 hours for me to fill in the resume, get matched with a writer, and receive the first draft. 

This is quite curious, as I didn’t upgrade to the 48-hour delivery add-on. So the question is, if they can deliver within 24 hours without the add-on, why offer the add-on at all?

Here’s the note from my resume writer:

And here’s the first draft of the resume:

At first glance, you’ll notice the following as the biggest difference:

• Addition of skill summary/executive summary
• Addition of area of expertise section
• Switching of header to a bigger font size and navy blue color font
• Combination of block text and bullet points for each job experience
• Exceeds one page

The TopResume resume is two pages (the original is a one-pager), though the only text in the 2nd page are two lines. I think they could have fitted this on one page if they worked on the formatting properly.

It also looks similar to another TopResume resume Redditor shared on a forum. So it seems that TopResume writers are given a set template to use for all of their resume clients.

Let’s take a closer look at each of the additions:

Skill summary/executive summary:

The big block of text is what opens the resume. At first glance, it looks quite challenging to read as any big block of text. 

But reading it closely, it sounds vague and doesn’t seem to be doing a good job of answering the question “why are you the best person for the job?” as the email said. It also has two grammatical errors.

Area of expertise section:

Not all applicant tracking systems are able to parse through multiple-column resumes, so this might not be ATS-compliant as TopResume promised.

Also, even if it does pass through ATS, it seems to just repeat keywords that are already in the skill summary and the job experience sections.

Combination of block text and bullet points for each job experience

According to the email, this formatting is “a strategic balance of paragraphs and bullets that work together to stand out in a quick 10-15 second review. These details are formatted differently, so your achievements stand out since they set you apart from other candidates with similar skills.” 

However, I think the big blocks of text makes it hard to read. I feel like any recruiter scanning this resume won’t readily get the information they need (relevants skills, achievements, etc.) looking at the paragraphs. They might even skip it altogether.

Also, reading the job descriptions closely, it looks like the writer simply removed each line from the bullet point and formatted them as a paragraph without changing too much.

As you will remember from the email TopResume sent, they outlined the instructions on how to send revision notes, one of which is not to use Track Changes or Comments. I’m curious why they think using either will hinder the revision process, as both seem to be a more convenient way to add comments or make changes to a file without tampering with the current format.

In my revision notes, I stated my concern about how the big blocks of text look hard to read, and that I’m wary about the Areas of Expertise section, as it seems repetitive. I also asked if we could keep the resume to a single page.

Step 4: Receive revised resume

I received the revised resume a day later. They reiterated the reasons for the sections and formats that I found questionable. They then said that the original was 1 page long, and so this time they sent a pdf version for me to see the revised version in the correct format.

The revision is not that extensive. They merely shortened the paragraphs to address my concern about the paragraphs being hard to read. Understandable, since I didn’t give any feedback on specific wordings.

It seems that they really believe in their suggested format and would not remove them or suggest an alternative, even if you’re not comfortable with them. 

3. Overall review of my TopResume experience↑

Let’s start with the positive. I would say that TopResume’s website was fairly easy to use. Purchase and sign-up went smoothly. The entire service, from filling up the questionnaire to receiving the first and second drafts, was quicker than expected.

That said, let’s get into the weakness of the service. First, there’s no way to know exactly how the writer match was made. While I did receive an email from the writer, apart from a standard friendly introduction, she did not provide any background information on her expertise. The information is also not available on their website.

Looking at the first draft, the wording was a bit generic, and sometimes vague and wordy (e.g. “Accomplished professional harnessing over three years of experience in product management to steer product development and lifecycle.”). 

The generic quality of the resume could be because all communication is done via email. I imagine even a short phone call with the owner of the resume might help the resume writer insert some personality into their customized rewrite. They do have a phone consultation as an add-on. But if you don’t have the budget for it, you might get a resume similar to the one I received which would take more than a little tweaking to personalize.

While researching TopResume reviews, I came across the company’s Glassdoor reviews where former writers complained about how poorly they were paid (one claimed they were paid a flat fee per resume, including revisions). This may also explain why their product's quality is subpar.

Finally, I found TopResume’s inflexibility with their resume template could be a source of frustration to some. It’s perfectly understandable that they would have a signature template, but if you express apprehension about the format of the resume, they won’t suggest any other layout. 

Overall, I think that with the starter package, TopResume won’t really do much for your resume that you can’t already do on your own. 

4. Is TopResume worth the money?↑

TopResume is not worth the money (from $149) based on my experience. Though the process was quick and efficient, the resulting resume felt generic, vague, and wordy. They also don’t provide any information about your assigned resume writer, so you have no way to verify their expertise.

While comparatively less expensive than similar services, the standard package is not cheap by any means. You may get a more personalized service with a writer on Fiverr. Or if you really want to get ahead of the competition, getting resume feedback from an expert in your field might be more worth your money.

5. 3 TopResume alternatives↑

Here are three alternatives to TopResume that you might want to consider if you want to get outside input on your resume.

5.1 IGotAnOffer

On IGotAnOffer, you can book a 1h resume review session with resume coaches who have worked as recruiters or interviewers at top companies. It specializes in tech, consulting, or finance, so if you're targeting a role in one of these industries, it's exactly what you need.

You can search by company, role (e.g. software engineer, PM), specialty, timezone, etc, and book a timeslot that suits you. There are well over 200 resume coaches on the platform, so plenty to choose from.

IGotAnOffer’s resume review is priced at $149, which is the same as TopResume’s starter package. It’s a significant investment, so if you're going for a lower-paid or non-competitive role, you might prefer to try option 2.

5.2 Resume thread on Reddit

This is technically not a resume "service", but it’s a useful place to go if you want to get some fresh eyes on your resume without spending money. Just post it there (you may want to anonymize it first) and after a day or so, you should have a few comments giving you ideas on how to improve it.

Of course, it's hard to tell if the people commenting really know what they're talking about, and sometimes the criticism could do with a bit more sugar-coating (!), but hey, it's free. Plus, you can gain a few tips and insights by browsing other people's resumes and the comments on those.

5.3 FindMyProfession

Find My Profession is a career assistance website that specializes in reverse recruitment and resume writing. For its resume writing services, you get different tiers depending on where you’re at in your career. Unlike TopResume, Find My Profession has the profiles of their resume writers on the website, though I don’t think you can choose.

Also unlike TopResume, Find My Profession automatically includes a phone consultation with the resume writer. They also offer unlimited revisions for one week after you receive the first draft.

Their services can be pricey, with the lowest tier for an entry-level resume at $395. So it’s up to you to decide whether spending that much money is worth it based on your current career goals.

6. Get expert feedback on your resume↑

That’s it! I hope you find our review of TopResume’s paid resume writing service useful. If you’ve yet to decide on whether a paid resume service is right for you, consider working on your resume on your own with these free guides:

• How to write a tech resume
• How to write a consulting resume
• How to write a product manager resume
• How to write a software engineering resume
• How to write a TPM/PgM resume
• How to write an engineering manager resume

Then afterwards, if you still feel you need some expert guidance on your resume, sign up for a resume review service on IGotAnOffer. Get immediate feedback on your resume from a top recruiter/coach of your choosing.