I'm sure they could give me a pretty resume. How can I tell if it actually works? There are dozens of factors at play[1]. While job candidates need to dedicate time to the job hunt (just like employers need to dedicate time to recruiting people) it's hard to imagine having the bandwidth and the sample size to do A/B testing of my resume compared with the "professional" one.

I can tell ugly and bad resumes. When a bunch of sentences on using Microsoft Office have been added to my resume, I can tell it's a bad resume. This doesn't mean I can tell the difference between the 95th percentile and the 98th percentile resume for a particular employer, where the latter will get me in the door and the former won't.

> but it's probably pointless trying to convince you otherwise.

Hey, thanks man!

[1] Say there are two companies and one has a "don't say anything about hobbies" hiring manager and the other has an "always mention hobbies" hiring manager.