CV and Resume Distribution Services – What Are They?

When you’re looking for a job, you might consider utilising CV and resume distribution services – often referred to as CV and resume forwarding services. These services take your CV or resume and send it to select recruiters, hiring managers or management recruiters.

While you may have all the skills and ability to carry out a job, you still need to get your CV noticed by the right recruiter or hiring manager.

A CV or resume distribution service bridges the gap between you and recruiters. They use their valuable connections to get your CV in front of the right people. Good resume distribution services have links and contacts with leading recruiters and management recruiters in your field. By using their services, you ensure your CV lands on their desk.

Of course, it isn’t always that simple. Some resume distribution services are better than others. Some will use valuable connections to place your CV or resume in the right hands, and others will distribute it en masse to recruiters who don't even want to see it. Other will simply upload to multiple job boards and hope the right recruiter comes across it.

The main objective of CV and resume distribution services is to get you more job interviews with companies that you want to work for.

In this guide, we’ll help you learn everything you need to know about the CV and resume distribution process. We’ll tell you the pros and cons to ensure you know what you’re getting into. We’ll also tell you which type of service to avoid to ensure you get full value for money.

Good CV and resume distribution services will send your CV to their network or contacts, which will include senior HR professionals. These HR professionals should be key decision-makers when it comes to recruitment. Who better to instantly get your CV or resume in front of than he or she who makes hiring decisions?

Some CV and resume distribution companies will also target specific companies that you want to work for. Some also claim to be able to submit your CV and resume to government authorities.

Many companies use CV and resume distribution services to support their recruitment requirements. These companies ask CV and resume distributions services for their clients' CVs or resumes on a regular basis.

Good CV and resume distribution companies will send your CV or resume to key decision-makers within your geographical location. There are a number who utilise their connections to get your CV in front of recruiters in Dubai and the Middle East. Others specialise in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. As such, it’s important to check if the company operates within your targeted location before you use their services.

You need to know who the distribution company will be sending your CV or resume to. Will it be sent to specific recruiters that have been carefully selected? Or will it be sent en masse to multiple recruiters who don’t have any actual connection with the company that is distributing your CV.

This is one of the most important aspects of resume distribution. Are there genuine connections with HR professionals and key decision-makers who genuinely want to receive CVs and resumes? If not, chances are your CV or resume isn’t even going to get looked at.

Find out if the distribution service can guarantee that your CV will be read. Some services do offer an interview guarantee when they send your CV out to recruiters. This is ideal, as you’re guaranteed to get results. There are even resume distribution companies that don’t charge a fee initially.

In an ideal world, the CV distribution service you use will tailor the service in line with your profile and requirements. Your industry specifications, salary expectations, location and employer preferences should all be taken into consideration.

With many of the cheaper CV and resume distribution services, you usually won’t get this level of service. Unfortunately, you usually get what you pay for, in our opinion.

Some CV and resume forwarding companies offer specific numbers of recruiters who are guaranteed to see your CV or resume. Some state that over 100 recruiters will receive your CV or resume if you use their services.

So it’s important to ask if they can offer any guarantee regarding how many recruiters or hiring managers will actually see your CV or resume. Or at least how many will receive it.

If you’re going to use distribution services, we highly recommend investing in a high-quality, reputable service. While these usually cost more than the standard distribution sites, they will most likely get you better results, in our opinion.

It’s important to find a service that you can be sure has strong contacts with people, not job boards. The best resume distributors, we believe, are the ones who utilise their valuable connections with recruiters and hiring managers. These are the people who can land you job interviews quickly.

Some good CV and resume distribution services make an effort to regularly engage with companies and make recommendations for employment.

While some distribution services will be much more expensive than others, you should ask yourself how much your career is worth to you. The right distribution service can get you a job interview with companies that you want to work for. Others won’t get you any results at all. So, whatever your budget, do your research and find one that you believe will work for you.

Some CV and resume distribution services are not targeted to specific recruiters. Some don’t even send your CV or resume directly to any recruiters. So consider the fact that you may have to invest in a high-quality service, even if it’s at a higher price, if you want to see real results.

So what are the advantages of using CV or resume distribution service?

- You benefit from the CV and resume distributor's network of connections. Good resume distributors have spent decades building connections with key decision-makers. You can instantly take advantage of this.

- CV and resume distributors save you time. You don’t need to spend hours, days and months hunting for your ideal employers and trying to get your CV in front of the right person. The CV or resume distribution company will do this for you.

- You can secure unadvertised positions. Good CV and resume forwarding services will help you get interviews for jobs that are not advertised.

- Guaranteed phone calls or emails from recruiters – Some CV and resume distribution services offer guarantees. Some claim that you will receive contact from potential employers within a matter of hours.

Of course, there are disadvantages to using some services.

- Some CV and resume distribution services don’t have great connections with recruiters. As such, you stand less chance of getting your CV or resume in front of the right recruiters.

- Some CV and resume distribution services only send out your CV or resume to job boards. While this can be an effective approach – and we do recommend using job boards – it doesn't get your CV directly in front of the recruiter.

Many CV and resume distributors offer job board distribution too. Some of them only offer job board distribution.

We recommend avoiding companies that provide job board distribution services. This is where you pay the company a fee and they upload your CV to job boards on the internet, sometimes over 150 job boards.

With job board distribution, your CV or resume is competing with thousands of others. Recruiters may trawl through all these resumes and CVs, but is there a strong chance the right recruiter will come across yours? Unlike targeted distribution to recruiters, there is no guarantee that you will see positive results with job board distribution.

Job board distribution is basically spamming the internet with your resume, in our opinion. Throwing your CV out to so many job boards is surely likely to lead to some interest in you as a candidate. But it may also cause some recruiters to lose interest in you as a candidate.

Let’s use a dating profile as an analogy. Imagine if you decided to stating online dating and uploaded your profile to over 150 dating websites. While you would likely attract interest, you may also get a reputation as someone who is desperate. Your details would be all over the internet, which could potentially be a privacy issue.

Simply put, this isn’t something most people would choose to do.

Take a similar approach with your CV or resume. If you decide you want to use job boards, great. They can be excellent. Choose one, or more, that you like and upload your professional CV.

In this case, because you haven’t blasted your CV all over the internet, you are able to manage your online activity and easily remove your CV if you ever decide to do so.

If your CV or resume is floating around every job board on the internet, recruiters or employers may well see it on multiple websites. It will instantly look like a mass upload. Instead, we recommend identifying the job boards in your niche, if you do in fact want to use job boards, and uploading a highly professional CV or resume that is tailored to the role you are pursuing.

There is also the privacy issue. When you’re asking a third-party to distribute your resume across the internet, do you really know where it is going to end up? CVs and resumes are confidential documents, with information such as contact details and place of work.

Additionally, when you find employment, your CV or resume will still be on the job board. Do the companies take them down when you’ve finished your job search? These are the questions you need to ask if you’re considering using job board distribution services. If they don’t remove your CV when you've finished your job search, it will likely be floating around in the far-flung corners of the internet until the end of time.

Simply put, we don’t see enough value in job board distribution. On top of that, there is the privacy issue. All in all, we highly recommend you avoid using services that offer to distribute your CV or resume to online job boards.

Prices for CV and resume distribution services vary significantly, ranging from forty dollars to over four thousand dollars.

The right CV and resume distribution services are absolutely worth the money, in our opinion. Getting your CV or resume in front of key decision-makers within companies you want to work for is something you can hardly put a price on.

On the other hand, some companies simply won’t have the connections to get your CV or resume in the right hands. They may send your CV or resume unsolicited to certain companies, but you could do that yourself. The reason for enlisting the support of a distribution service is to benefit from their connections.

As previously mentioned, some resume distributors don’t even send your CV to recruiters. They just upload them to online job boards. Again, we don’t recommend these services. While they are sure to work for some people, we recommend engaging services that use valuable connections – real people – to get results with your CV or resume.

If you decide to use a CV or resume distributor, we recommend using one that offers a guarantee. This way you will be more confident in investing in the service and will feel more likely to get results.

If you are at a more senior level of their career – whether you’re a manager, executive, director or c-level professional – you will require a CV and resume forwarding service that can accommodate your requirements.

You will need a service that has contacts with management recruiters or key decision-makers who handle recruitment at senior level.

There are some very good executive CV and resume distribution services that will put your CV or resume in front of executive recruiters. These services have connections with executive level hiring professionals, which they maintain through regular networking.

If you are at senior level and think of using a professional service to distribute your resume, it is important to use a service that specifically works with senior level professionals.

If you do decide you use professional resume and CV distribution services, we highly recommend you use a targeted service. Targeted CV and resume distribution means that your CV or resume will be sent to a recruiter who has been specifically targeted based on your requirements. We don't believe your job search will be improved if you simply blast your CV out to a huge number of recruiters who simply don’t want to see it.

Hopefully this guide will help you decide if CV/resume distribution is right for you. If you need any further advice on resume distribution, feel free to get in touch with us. We’re always happy to answer any questions you may have about your job search.