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I recently signed up for an account at The Ladders to get access to some jobs that weren't posted elsewhere. As part of their service, they offer a free resume review. This is clearly a lead-generator for their their moderately expensive professional resume writing service, but since it was free with my $30 subscription, I figured why not?

I had given the reviewer my MT-style resume (the two-page version, with ALL my accomplishments, which I would normally trim down for specific positions). Her feedback was excellent, and she praised the focus on accomplishments and basic approach. Her comments on how I could approve were entirely in keeping with Mark and Mike's recommendations (she noticed some responsibilities mixed in with accomplishments, and some verbs in the accomplishments that were insufficiently "active"). My one complaint about it was that she was fairly inspecific and said "You need more active verbs," not "Here is an example of a verb that could be improved, and how to improve it." Since they're selling writing services, that makes some sense to me.

The one place where her advice deviated from MT's, was that she recommended a summary section at the top of the resume. Based on feedback I've received from recruiters I know, that may not be a terrible piece of advice, since many people are now going straight to the resume, and skipping the cover letter, where I'd normally include that sort of statement.

So, ultimately, I take this as a strong third-party endorsement of the MT-style resume philosophy and basic format. Whether it's worthwhile to get a review by The Ladders, rather than the one offered here, is entirely up to you. Given that I essentially paid nothing for the resume review I received, I got my money's worth for sure. ;)