“Biggest scam on earth. Please do not give them any money! My "CV" looked as if a baby had written it - the vocabulary and formatting was unbelievably atrocious. The bullet points and headings were also all
muddled up. Each Section of the "CV" has a huge amount of continuous prose using the most generic and waffly words there ever could be. Furthermore, they also wrote things in my "CV" that were untrue (i.e. generic lies) and that I never ever said that I had done. I am embarrassed of it.”
“Terrible. My “writer” did not respond to a single question I asked nor did they ask me any questions but simply reworded the version I had given them. Other resume writing services I’ve used in the past used a very collaborative process approach. The most useful part of the whole thing was the free review used to sucker you then once you’ve parted with your money they phone it in big time.”
“TopCV is fraud. The best they do is the initial free assessment. Gives you a good indication what you may need to improve. If you contract them, you will receive nonsense drafts with plenty of nonsense statements. Attempting to work with the writer leads to more work than just writing it up yourself. Be VERY careful with what they send you - if you were to use their work for an application, you're likely to disqualify yourself. Their support is actually a "bot" that keeps telling you that they'll respond shortly - but they do not react at all.”
“Do not use TOP CV, they are a scam and use the same critique synopsis to attract costumers!
I paid for my cv, and some time later I requested a critique and found that they sent me the exact same critique wording.
Avoid!!!”
“Seriously, don't waste your time. Take the free critique and make the changes yourself. From my experience this is a total con. MS Word has some templates, and Google can provide you with a list of action verbs. These guys won't add much more but will take a good chunk of your cash.
Having read the mixed reviews I was skeptical, but thought it was worth it even if they only helped me address a couple of the sensible recommendations raised in the free critique. Despite, I was genuinely amazed at how terrible this was. In short, I spent a month engaging with two writers to generate something that still didn't address the recommendations from the free critique, and I certainly wouldn't consider submitting with a job application. For the record, my own CV has a 100% success rate on getting an interview, I just knew it could be better, and the critique hit some points I wanted to address. I was suckered in!
My first writer spent the best part of a week literally deleting all of my 16 years management experience, saying that as I was transitioning from the military it was no longer relevant. In two weeks we didn't make much progress at all, the product was significantly worse than the one I initially provided and didn't align to the target jobs. I put the new CV, which contained literally no experience at all - just a list of qualifications and a fictional summary, back through the TopCV critique tool and got an automated response saying it was in the top 4% of CVs - what a joke!
The complaints team was apologetic, and the second writer certainly had a better go at it, but still lacked either the will or ability to address the recommendations in the free critique. Having spent hours responding to drafts over a month I had to draw a line under it and move on.
Key issues from my perspective:
- Lack of interaction & exchange - this didn't provide the collaborative CV development I had hoped. The writers did nothing more than put the information I provided into one of their templates, with the addition of some action verbs. I made sure to respond to each draft with comprehensive comments within a few hours of receipt, but those comments fell on deaf ears.
- Poorly trained & experienced staff - If these guys were professional CV writers then I should be punting for a job as their CEO. I would be amazed if either of my writers had any real experience of recruitment.
- Lack of internal assurance - it was very clear that there was no process of checking the writers work before it was sent back to me. The first writers drafts were riddled with inaccuracies, spelling, and grammar mistakes. His response when I asked him to re-check his work was to ask if I could highlight the errors. Well, if i'm doing that then I have no need for your services as it's quicker to correct them myself as I go.
A long review, but I wanted to offer something I would have appreciated before I wasted my cash and several hours of my life.”
“Slow, incoherent, mistake-ridden
Slow - 'respond within 24 hours' means in a week, IF you email AND call customer 'support'. Otherwise expect no response whatsoever.
Incoherent - if you want the copy to bamboozle every person who will ever read your CV, welcome - you've come to the right place! Convoluted, overly complex and nonsensical. My CV was incomprehensible when I received it back; like the writer had used a thesaurus on EVERY word.
Mistake-ridden - my writer was clearly not a native English speaker, which meant I had to correct most of the document myself. And I highly doubt if she was knowledgeable about my industry. As above, most of what she re-wrote made little to no sense.
I don't know what TopCV's competition is like, but they can't be worse. Use someone else and save yourself money and several weeks of banging your head against the wall”
