The first-ever federal resume writing service.
01A current or recently separated fed facing a reduction in force, a reorganization, or plain uncertainty. They have a decade of real federal accomplishments and a resume built for USAJOBS, not for a private recruiter who reads it in six seconds. The move is not a step down. Their federal experience is the most valuable thing on the page, once it is translated.
RIFs and federal uncertainty are creating real demand right now. The federal-to-private move is exactly the brand's expertise, and these readers already trust it.
02A senior leader applying to the Senior Executive Service, or carrying executive-level federal experience into the private sector. The documents are heavier and the stakes are higher: ECQs, the five-page narrative, the two-page executive resume. They expect a partner who has written at this level for years and who treats their time accordingly.
High-value vertical that spans both worlds. Was buried under federal-resumes; the demand and the price point earn it a focus of its own.
03Someone with real accomplishments and no clear way to fit them into a federal resume. Mid-career or moving into government, facing OPM rules, GS levels, and a USAJOBS form that does not reward modesty. They want to serve, and they want the work they have already done to count.
Still the base of the practice. No longer the whole story, but the proof that everything else is built on.
04Responsible for finding qualified candidates and training the people already inside the agency. They buy SES ECQ workshops, trainer certifications, and curriculum on a government rate and a government timeline. They need a partner who has done this for decades and can show the receipts.
B2B agency training is softer under the current federal posture. Kept on the roster, but not a primary focus this cycle.
05An educator or career-services professional who teaches the federal job search using the Ten Steps curriculum. They earned their certification through the program and carry the methodology into resource centers, military transition offices, and private practice. They are both the brand's audience and its extension into the field.
The community that carries the method into the field. Valued, but not a growth lane this cycle.
Tone: Charismatic, Empowering, Plainspoken.
The Resume Place is cut-and-dried but certainly not dry or dull.
01Honest02Charismatic03Empowering04Invigorating05Irreverent06Timeless07Visionary08Authentic09Intelligent14 brand colors carrying the system.
5 type roles across the family.
Federal careers, served.
Honoring the legacy. Writing the next chapter.
A brand that has held a category since 1973.
Five service entry points, one homepage. The Ten Steps shelf has anchored federal career publishing for decades.
OPM · SES · ECQ · CFJST · CFCC
Marks, variants, and the sub-brand systems they anchor.
The brand as a live design system: color roles, type, spacing, motion, and components. Open the full system for the complete spec.
The brand as a working system: tokens become content patterns and product screens. How the brand and the work connect.
Composed patterns
The applied design studies, ported onto the platform and driven entirely by the tokens above. Two registers: the document stays ATS-quiet (ink, Messina, mono federal data); the frame carries the brand (navy ground, bright-blue signal, tangelo as a whisper).
Tangelo is rare: one primary action per view. Bright book-cover blue carries the signal; navy is the ground. Condensed handles acronyms and editions.
ButtonPillMono noteCondensed labelsONE tangelo action per view. Bright blue carries the signal. Navy is the ground.
The metadata a federal résumé must carry — series/grade, hours per week, salary, supervisor may-contact — set in Messina Mono as a bordered strip. The title is the one Serif moment in the document body.
Serif titleMono stripCondensed cell labelsFour labeled beats — Context · Challenge · Action · Result — so a hiring manager scans it in six seconds. Only the quantified result carries the bright-blue signal.
Serif folioCondensed beat labelsMono metricSignal blueLives only in the frame, never on the paper. Big thin-Serif match numeral in bright blue (same family as the marketing hero stats); covered keywords sit calm, a single required-but-missing term is the one tangelo whisper.
Serif numeralSignal meterMono keyword chipsTangelo gapReal screens
Composed pages built from the foundations, components, and patterns above. Live, not stills. The marketing homepage and the résumé workbench — the two surfaces the whole system exists to serve.
The marketing surface. The light editorial hero with its USAJOBS-ready preview card and serif proof stats, the navy Ten Steps books band with bright-blue covers, the "not dry, nor dull" character quote, the three-practice pillars, the core-services icon system, the articles and live-events bands, and the darkest-ground CTA. Navy is the ground; tangelo whispers once per view.
Fifty years inside the federal hiring system taught us how a résumé wins. That expertise now works across the whole field, from the first federal job to the senior executive panel, and out into the private market.
The 2026 guidance rewrites how a federal application is supposed to read. We have tracked every OPM format era since 1973, so when a rule moves we already know what it means for your page.
Agencies are moving off the old five-page outline to a tight two-page format. Every accomplishment now has to earn its line. We have written to this length since the day it was announced.
Some announcements now ask for a short narrative in place of a duties list. It reads like a story and scores like a qualification. Most applicants have never written one. We have.
The new guidance pushes for skills-based, plain-language packages over jargon and acronyms. A clearer page that a human and an ATS both read the same way.
Drop your current résumé up top, or come as you are. We read your roles, dates, series and grade. No blank form to fight.
One hour with a consultant who measures your history against the announcement and names exactly what wins the referral.
You get a finished, OPM-correct résumé written to the current two-page format, not a template, not a wizard. Written for you.
Ten Steps to a Federal Job® — the methodology agencies still train on, for military and spouses.
From$21.95
The book on the two-page federal résumé. Keyword sets, accomplishment stories, real before-and-afters.
From$21.95
The federal job search for active-duty spouses: the four hiring paths and how to win on each.
From$15.95
Moving between federal and private industry: how to convert the record so the other market reads it.
From$29.95Since 2002 we have certified career counselors, workforce staff, and HR teams to teach federal résumé writing and the federal job search. A three-day program, train-the-trainer, with the books, the agenda, and the credential to run it yourself.
3-day certification · curriculum + license includedFor workforce, employment, and transition counselors who teach the federal job search.
For coaches and HR staff who write and review the federal résumé one-on-one.
Kathryn Troutman, the owner of The Resume Place, literally wrote the book on federal resume writing. Her personalized feedback and coaching has been absolutely invaluable in helping me receive more than a half-dozen federal job offers (and still counting). Particularly in a few instances when I feel I’ve hit a wall, Kathryn always seems to know what I’m doing wrong and how to fix my mistake.
We discussed and reworked my résumé, also developing a suitable cover letter. I sent it out to four potential employers, and I was amazed to receive an outstanding offer the next day. True story, and I am grateful to Resume Place for the exceptional result.
Rita dedicated herself to understanding my concerns with my old resume. In under a week, she took my federal employment history with its disparate collection of duties and accomplishments and helped me craft an easy-to-read professional resume.
Before a key agency Senior Executive Service interview, Kathryn efficiently designed an interview simulation, application, and post-op review. Her no-nonsense guidance provided lifelong tips on the “Last 5 Percent” interview elements crucial to placement success. I could tell the positive difference during the extensive agency interview that followed.
The centerpiece, and the artifact at the center of the business. The two registers made visible: a disciplined ink-on-paper federal résumé (Serif masthead, Mono metadata strips, CCAR accomplishments with the win in bright-blue) held inside the expressive navy frame — match score, keyword coverage, format checks, and the one tangelo whisper on a missing required keyword. Runs on JSON Resume plus a federal extension.
Same tokens as the marketing tile. The difference is discipline: inside the paper, the system goes quiet so a machine can read it. Around the paper, it speaks.
Inside the document: ink, one navy rule, no bleeds, no orange. If a machine can’t parse it, the design failed. The brand lives in the frame.
Grade, hours, salary, supervisor, dates. The fields that make a résumé federal are the fields that earn the monospace, set as a bordered strip on every job.
One signal color in the body, and only on a quantified result. Everything a hiring manager should catch in six seconds is bright-blue, nothing else competes.
The accent never decorates the résumé. It appears once, on a required keyword that’s missing, because the brand’s job is to point at the next thing to fix.
Long-form publications extending the brand into print.
Applied collateral, certificates, and presentation surfaces.
Photography direction and the brand image library.
Historical archive — the brand’s long arc.
Campaign creative shipping on the brand’s ongoing cadence.
The Resume Place helps people write new chapters in their story of service and commitment to America.
