As co-coordinator with my colleague, Miriam Salpeter, I am proud to help launch a new community of expert career advisors and resume writing professionals called the Career Collective. This article is one of many responses to the question, “Are you a cookie cutter job seeker?” Please follow our hashtag on Twitter: #careercollective.

So, you are the guy with the master’s degree in the same thing your job competitors have a master’s degree in. At your last position you were personally responsible for _______________. Fill in the blank with one of the following answers, A. Increasing Sales, B. Increasing Productivity or C. Team Building.

Guess what? So did 99% of the other applicants.

You are just like every other cookie on the sheet. Same size, cooked for the same amount of time, same golden brown color, same texture.

What real difference does it make to one eating the cookies as to which row on the sheet the cookie came from, they are all exactly alike. Just pick one, eat it and move on.

The same holds true in the world of look alike resumes. Same old blah, blah, blah. For the most part hiring managers could take them, fling them in the air, grab one from the pile as they float to the floor, and make his or her decision based on that highly technical and thorough, technique.

You must stand out from the crowd. Especially in today’s highly competitive job market.

One of the best ways to stand out of course is to work with a professional who will ferret out those things that you either don’t think are important or you may have forgotten about.

How many times have you sat down to write your own resume, or a letter to your mother, or a note to your spouse for that matter, and after sending it to the recipient thought to yourself, “Oh, I forgot to mention this , or that?”

Had you consulted with someone first, the odds of leaving anything out would have been greatly diminished. That is the beauty of having your resume professionally written. Once the worksheet is done, you have had the opportunity to spend time thoroughly going over your career up to this point. All the while your resume writer asks probing questions that allow them to get down to the nuts and bolts of who you are and how you were able to accomplish those successes.

Almost every Saturday night during sailing season a group of us sit around and tell stories about recent sailing adventures. We laugh at each other, compliment each other and offer ideas on how to do it better. But the most fun part is when someone else tells a story about what I did or didn’t do. Now , I could tell the same story about myself, and all the facts would remain. But listening to someone else tell the same story from their unique perspective is always a hundred times more entertaining, not just to me, but to the rest of the crew as well.

The same holds true with allowing an expert “story teller” tell your story.

You are what you are and most people are not professional writers. Professional writers, or at least successful professional writers, spend much of their time researching the English language and constantly are on the lookout for better ways to express thoughts and ideas.

You’ve worked too long and too hard at becoming a success to wind up just another cookie on the tray. So why not make sure the one in charge of cookie selection is aware that you have a lot more chips then the other guys.