Cultivating Referrals

Once you've been in business for more than a year, you should have a solid network of referrers. These can be clients, people in your network, other careers professionals, other business owners, etc.

If you don't have a network, get one! Think of some strategic partnerships you can develop. Be creative -- how about a referral relationship with your dentist? Or hairstylist? Or a divorce attorney? Or a mental health therapist who does career testing? Or a recruiter? An employment lawyer? The possibilities are endless.

Incorporate your request for referrals into your business. Tell clients that you get most of your new clients by referral -- and you'd appreciate, if they're satisfied with your services -- that they tell other individuals about you. Help them understand what kind of clients you're looking for ("Sam, as a senior executive yourself, you may comes across another executive who has been downsized and isn't having much success with traditional outplacement. If you are telking with someone like that, give me a call -- perhaps I can help him/her."

Develop (or enhance) your Reward for Referrals program. At a minimum, you should always send the referrer a handwritten thank you note.

Resources for Older Workers

Thanks to Bill Murdoch for this list of sites offering resources for older workers.

Compiled by US News & World Report, this aggregation of sites will be useful for your clients who are 50+.

Selling Your Resume Writing Business

I was reading an American Express publication today ("Open Book: A Practical Guide for Business Growth") and came across a short piece about selling your business.

Raymond Joabar, Sr. Vice President and General Manager of Lending and Network Development writes, "The sale price of your business will probably be the largest single factor affecting your wealth and retirement."

Yet most resume writers I know don't "cash out" this investment that they've spent years building -- they simply close their businesses. This is a topic that's interested me for a couple of years, ever since I heard a speaker from the Nebraska Business Development Center talk about business valuations. It's a topic I'd like to explore in a future issue of Resume Writers' Digest too. Have a thought on the subject? Drop me an email to RWDigest@aol.com.

Tiger Woods' Resume

One of my favorite authors on ere.net, Dr. John Sullivan, has an excellent article for recruiters and hiring managers about how they're not set up to hire a "superstar" like Tiger Woods. ("How NOT to Hire Tiger Woods!")

One of the points he makes is how the resume vetting process is not set up to favor clients with unusual backgrounds -- even though they may be top performers in their field:

Having a poorly designed resume screening process. Even if he did submit a resume, most resume screening systems would reject the real Tiger Woods because he was a college dropout (even if it was from Stanford). Despite being the world's top golfer, his resume might be rejected because of his grades, because he misspelled a word, because of his non-rigorous academic major, or even because for a long period he had no steady "continuous" record of employment. He might even be rejected by some in your firm because he would be clearly judged as "overqualified" for this "average" position.