Complaint Review: gotthejob.com - Internet

Let’s start from the beginning, so the audience knows ALL the facts before I am being trashed on line, because the service I received was indeed substandard and yes I got a refund after I told Mr Goodman I dont wnat to work with them anymore and disputed the charges.  

I will include my cover letter that is so "great" for others to judge.

My first contact with Mr. Goodman was back in Jan. 2014.  I submitted my resume via his site for a free resume evaluation. After 2-3 weeks of no reply I followed up with another email, and finally got a reply, where Mr. Goodman told me to call him. I did and here is how the conversation went:

"You have a great exp, but your resume is very poorly written, it needs help. I can definitely help you, give me your credit card". I also mentioned to Mr. Goodman that I don’t have a lot of exp. in Project Management field, but that’s the field I want to be in, thus I need such a resume that I can use to target jobs in PM field, be it a project coordinator or a Jr. Project Manager.

Also, I told him I have a gap in employment due to personal reasons, and that needs to be addressed as well. He suggested I discuss it with a writer he will assign to work with me.

To make long story short - I spoke with the writer once or twice. I did ask her to address the employment gap. The best she could do is add to the resume that I was a care taker for my family members (per my suggestion, btw, bc she had no ideas of her own on how to address that situation). Anyway, she took my old resume, reformatted it, deleted a few things and was done. $319, while telling me there is only so many ways she can say what my exp is, so I shouldn’t expect anything more.

Many people have gaps in employment for various reasons and that is something that a skillfull writer can address in the cover letter in the way that makes sense to the potential employer and is personalized to my situation, yet the writer (and Mr. Goodman himself) pretty much refused to do that and told me that the cover letter is good as it is and I should trust them on that and trust them on the resume; even though, I did say it looks "different" from what I would normally get, it’s hard to read.

I didn’t exactly APPROVE it, I said, "ok, I guess, I will give it a try", that was my exact words! Does that sound like I am perfectly happy with it?!  I was not being difficult; I was cooperative and gave it an fair try.  

Mr. Goodman claims that I have no relevant experience and there is nothing he can do for me, it’s pretty much my fault I can't get a job.  Well, if that’s the case, one would think that Mr. Goodman with his 15-20 years of exp. writing "world’s best" resumes would assess my resume/exp. in just minutes and let me know immediately that I am not to be helped with my "lack" of relevant exp. and he shouldn't waste his time on me.

But, instead - he complimented me on my exp, trashed my resume calling it poorly written, asked for a credit card, charged (without even asking me or discussing the cost with me!) for a "first level management" package resume service for $319 (how can someone be a 1st level manager if I have no experience according to Mr. Goodman!?), forgot to give me $20 unemployed discount that was advertised on his site at the time (after I asked him for it at least twice in writing), then took what was in my old resume, formatted it, took bullet points out, made it difficult to read, moved a few paragraphs up and down and was done.

The cover letter starts with : "Managing projects is what I do best"... Really? I am decent in managing a project, I am still learning though, and I told Mr. Goodman that it’s a pretty bold statement, because I don’t have a lot of exp in PM, and that statement is for a more senior, more experienced project manager.

I asked Mr. Goodman to fix my cover letter (I gave up on the resume and decided to use my old resume that Mr. Goodman claims no employer can possibly be interested in... I don’t know how I got a job at T-Mobile, Amazon, Boeing with my “spotty” employment history, but apparently Mr. Goodman knows better than managers at those companies, all of which I left on good terms and was even re-hired at Amazon!).

Mr Goodman did step in, but again, changed a few words and moved a paragraph up and down and sent it back to me as "changed"... Does that constitute a "change"?  I have seen good, personalized cover letters that address unemployment and other issues, but what Mr. Goodman produced is far from it.

I want to emphasize that Mr. Goodman really has no business discussing my experience here as it is unprofessional and irrelevant to the issue at hand and that is the quality of his service.  Its unprofessional to trash his customers instead of taking responsibility for his work.

Current state of the economy, high unemployment especially in CA and my personal circumstances may have affected my employment history.  It is not Mr. Goodman’s place to judge.  I am in the military (Reserve, but activate for various assignments and training) and also married to the military and that is not always best for my career, we have to live in places that are remote and driving to work 70 ml each way is hardly an option.

Irrelevant military exp? Mr. Goodman, I chose to serve my country and it takes time out of my life, my civilian job and sacrifice including my civilian career.  Yet, a good writer would still see military exp. as valuable transferable skills.  

If Mr. Goodman couldn’t work with what I had, he should have simply told me so without wasting my time and later blaming and judging me.  His site guarantees an interview in 30 days and some level of professionalism, which obviously doesn’t translate into his responses to the customers' complaints.  If some people are not good candidates for Mr. Goodman to work with due to their lack or exp. or whatever reason, that should be made clear upfront even if it means losing a sale.

________________________________

Cover letter Below

Manager

ABC Company

1234 Career Road

Chicago, IL 60 

RE: advertised ____________

Dear XXX,

Managing and directing IT projects to meet needs and requirements on time and within budget is what I do best.

Highlights of my background include:

• Deep project management experience. I have directed a data center migration project for T-Mobile that encompassed 30 applications and servers and met the 9 month timeframe.
• Consistent track record of top performance. I have 6+ years of solid project management experience and achieved top ranked performance in every position. Amazon, Inc. rehired me.

• Experience in technology infrastructure project management including virtual and physical server deployments and decommissioning. 

I would like to discuss in greater detail the valuable contributions I would make at your organization. Your time and consideration are most appreciated.

I am surprised to see this especially as we provided multiple drafts and then gave her a FULL REFUND after realizing we could not work any further with her.

Yelena Morgan asked us to produce a project manager resume / business analyst resume. She had several discussions with her writer and APPROVED the resume and cover letter.

About 3 weeks later she contacted us to indicate she had not had any interviews, so I personally stepped in to work with her to revise the resume.

In looking at Yelena’s history, she is challenged by not really having any substantial project management experience and has a very spotty job history that shows no work during 2013 except for 2 months in a job that “was a bad fit” (a year after she left her last job), 9 months in the previous job as a contractor ending 12/2012, 2 years of unrelated experience in Navy Reserve supply officer training, a 4-month contract supervising transportation schedules, a 7-month job ensuring adherence to procurement contracts and a 3-month job tracking transportation schedules.

This is hardly the experience that will excite an employer. So, at her request, we made some changes to re-position the resume for project coordinator and administrator roles, although clearly we cannot change her job history. We also tried to show her how to use the cover letter and customize it for each position, but it appears she does not understand our directions.

We also cautioned her about using just the job boards to apply for jobs as she has far less experience and too spotty a job history to compete with the other candidates who are applying for those same jobs and getting higher ranks from the Applicant Tracking Systems that read and rank resumes. We directed her to network through LinkedIn and other associations.

One week later she complained about still not getting interviews so we concluded we could not do anything more for her and offered her a full refund.

We have written over 20,000 resumes and wish we could get everybody a job, but in Yelena Morgan’s case, her job history and experience are just not strong enough to make the phone ring when she is competing with other candidates over the job boards.