Spent $200 on a LinkedIn profile review and it flopped hard

I paid some career coach $200 to rewrite my LinkedIn profile last month. They basically just moved my bullet points around and changed a few buzzwords. My views actually went down after their changes because it sounded like corporate nonsense. I ended up rewriting everything myself in plain language and got three recruiter messages within a week. Has anyone else had better luck with those paid profile services or am I just picking the wrong people?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_seth10d ago

Did they ask you what you actually do day-to-day or just look at your profile... That's usually the problem with these services, they have a template they use for everyone regardless of industry. What kind of profile changes did you end up making that got the recruiter attention?

nora18410d ago

Asking the right follow-up questions is the difference between a service that helps and one that just wastes your money... did they actually ask you about the specifics of your day, like what tools you use or how your team communicates, or was it all surface level? That's the part that always gets me, they'll rewrite your summary but never touch the actual meat of what makes you look good to recruiters in your field. So what specific changes did you make that finally got their attention, like did you change your headline or focus on current projects more? I'm curious because I've seen people say just moving your most relevant keywords to the top of your about section made the biggest difference, not some major overhaul.

jennifer35810d ago

i think the bigger issue here is that most of these services are run by people who haven't actually applied for a job in years. they know what linkedin says a good profile should look like, but they don't understand how recruiters actually scan profiles on their phones while they're on the train. i had a friend who paid for a similar service and it was obvious the person just used some AI tool to rewrite everything. the real trick is keeping it short and scannable, not sounding like a marketing brochure. recruiters spend like six seconds looking at your profile so you gotta hook them fast with normal words, not buzzwords. your own rewrite proved that plain language works way better than whatever corporate jargon they pumped out.