Voice
Tone: Charismatic, Empowering, Plainspoken.
Rules
Lead with the work
Federal hiring is technical. Name the rule, the document, the window. Earn the reader’s time with a specific signal.
Hold the warmth
Fifty years of helping people serve. The voice respects the seriousness of the moment without losing its humanity.
Plainspoken authority
No federal jargon for its own sake. Short sentences. Direct verbs. Sources cited when stakes are high.
Headlines state it plainly
One plain statement per headline. No clever two-part fragments ('Federal is the proof. It travels.'), no italic or colored-accent treatment on part of the line. State the fact and let it carry.
Derived from. Plainspoken
No em dashes
Use commas, colons, or periods instead. Applies to all copy: body, captions, data, headlines.
Derived from. Plainspoken
The method is human
Never foreground AI process in client-facing service copy. Describe the work in human terms: the writer analyzes, we trim, we translate.
Derived from. Authentic
resume, not résumé
Write 'resume', never 'résumé'. No accents, anywhere. Client mandate (Kathryn, note #22371).
Derived from. Timeless
By surface
The hero earns trust with expertise, not urgency. Fifty years of federal work is the proof. State it plainly and let it carry.
Do
Don't
Sample copy
We wrote the book on federal resumes.
Homepage, brand book cover · The brand's foundational claim. Literal (the Ten Steps books) and figurative (the expertise). Works because it is true and plainly stated.
Prefer
Avoid
