From the "Letter from the Editor," Fast Company, January 2005:
In his 80th year of life, the famous English sculptor Henry Moore was asked a fascinating question by literary critic Donald Hall.
"Now that you are 80, you must know the secret of life. What is it?"
Moore paused ever so slightly, with just enough time to smile before answering.
"The secret of life," he mused, "is to have a task, something you do your entire life, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do."
The sculptor's remarks represent a nicely packaged theory of a productive life: Throw yourself into something big that you believe in. Dedicate your life's work to it. And make damn sure it's ambitious enough to stretch you to the limits.
-- John A. Byrne
Ideas, information, and resources for professional resume writers.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Average Resume Writer Profile: Professional Conferences
Our “average” resume writer has been to a professional association conference before. There was one that was only a couple hours away, so she decided to go when she found a $49 one-way Southwest Airlines fare. It was a good experience.
The opening reception was lots of fun, and she met a lot of new people … including some names she recognized from the association’s email list.
The first day’s morning sessions were very good – the first one was really relevant – it was on a resume writing topic, she recalls … but the second session was on something she wasn’t really interested in. Lunch went well – the food was pretty good, and she sat by a couple of people she met the night before. After lunch, she decided to check her voice mail messages, an discovered one of her clients needed a change to his cover letter. Fortunately, she had brought along her laptop, so she went back to her room and made the change and sent off the file. She’d missed the first after-lunch session (it was on using Microsoft Word), but she made it for the next one, on pricing your services. A great session by Susan Britton Whitcomb on resume writing strategies rounded out the day.
That night, she joined in the scheduled activity, a dinner at a famous local restaurant, followed by a show. She hung out in the hotel lobby afterwards, talking to some fellow resume writers until nearly 1 a.m., then called it a night.
Morning dawned too early. She slept in a bit and missed breakfast. The first session of the day was something about websites, and she already has one, so she went next door to Burger King and had a Croissanwich and coffee.
She got back in time for the last morning session, on organization, time management, and client management strategies. She picked up a few tips she vowed to put into practice when she got back home.
Lunch again – sitting with her new group of friends. They decided it was too beautiful of a day to spend inside … so they skipped out of the Friday afternoon sessions to head out to the beach that was just a few blocks away, and then dinner at a restaurant just off the ocean.
Saturday morning dawned, with a continental breakfast (the same food choices as Thursday, she noticed), and the first session of the day on interview coaching techniques. Very interesting! The second session was on conducting career assessments. A couple of people left mid-way through, though, collecting the suitcases they had stashed at the back of the room.
The conference ended at 1 p.m., but she had a 1:30 p.m. flight, and in this post-9/11 world, that meant getting to the airport by 12:15. She’d have to duck out of the last session herself, leaving before the closing banquet.
Sitting on the plane on the way back home, she paused to reflect on the trip. She met a couple of new friends, picked up some new tricks, and got a nice tan. Her total expenses were only about $1100, including the conference registration, hotel, plane fare, meals and drinks. Not bad.
She’d do it again, if the conference were somewhere fun, and the sessions looked interesting.
The opening reception was lots of fun, and she met a lot of new people … including some names she recognized from the association’s email list.
The first day’s morning sessions were very good – the first one was really relevant – it was on a resume writing topic, she recalls … but the second session was on something she wasn’t really interested in. Lunch went well – the food was pretty good, and she sat by a couple of people she met the night before. After lunch, she decided to check her voice mail messages, an discovered one of her clients needed a change to his cover letter. Fortunately, she had brought along her laptop, so she went back to her room and made the change and sent off the file. She’d missed the first after-lunch session (it was on using Microsoft Word), but she made it for the next one, on pricing your services. A great session by Susan Britton Whitcomb on resume writing strategies rounded out the day.
That night, she joined in the scheduled activity, a dinner at a famous local restaurant, followed by a show. She hung out in the hotel lobby afterwards, talking to some fellow resume writers until nearly 1 a.m., then called it a night.
Morning dawned too early. She slept in a bit and missed breakfast. The first session of the day was something about websites, and she already has one, so she went next door to Burger King and had a Croissanwich and coffee.
She got back in time for the last morning session, on organization, time management, and client management strategies. She picked up a few tips she vowed to put into practice when she got back home.
Lunch again – sitting with her new group of friends. They decided it was too beautiful of a day to spend inside … so they skipped out of the Friday afternoon sessions to head out to the beach that was just a few blocks away, and then dinner at a restaurant just off the ocean.
Saturday morning dawned, with a continental breakfast (the same food choices as Thursday, she noticed), and the first session of the day on interview coaching techniques. Very interesting! The second session was on conducting career assessments. A couple of people left mid-way through, though, collecting the suitcases they had stashed at the back of the room.
The conference ended at 1 p.m., but she had a 1:30 p.m. flight, and in this post-9/11 world, that meant getting to the airport by 12:15. She’d have to duck out of the last session herself, leaving before the closing banquet.
Sitting on the plane on the way back home, she paused to reflect on the trip. She met a couple of new friends, picked up some new tricks, and got a nice tan. Her total expenses were only about $1100, including the conference registration, hotel, plane fare, meals and drinks. Not bad.
She’d do it again, if the conference were somewhere fun, and the sessions looked interesting.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Average Resume Writer Profile: Marketing/Advertising/Public Relations
Speaking of marketing and public relations support, our “average” resume writer has a couple of thoughts on the process.
She’s been in the Yellow Pages for years, but her ad isn’t as big anymore. That’s because the kinds of calls she gets as a result of the ad aren’t as good as they used to be … there seems to be more price-shoppers and tire-kickers than before. Her Yellow Pages rep keeps trying to sell her an upgrade to an “enhanced” online listing, but she’s not convinced by the numbers he’s throwing out.
Online is the place to be, she thinks, but I think I can do more with my money on my own. She’s got a website. But it’s mostly an “online brochure,” and she updates it about once a year. She’s got some information about the services she offers, the logos for the professional associations she belongs to (even the ones that she used to belong to – whoops, forgot to take the logo down when the membership lapsed). Organizations change, but her website is stuck in time… there’s a reference to the Professional Resume Writing and Research Association (PRWRA) – now Career Directors International, and she followed Wendy Enelow’s advice to put the Career Masters Institute logo on her site … but now it’s “The Alliance” and she still has the CMI logo on there … even though she forgot to send in her renewal last month (or was it the month before that?)
She’d like to build her network, but who has the time? She’s sure there are some groups out there she could speak to and possibly get some business out of, but has no idea where to start the contact process. She did one speech last year to a Kiwanis group, but it seemed to be a lot of self-employed folks (insurance agents, doctors, lawyers) and she didn’t get any new clients from it.
She’s heard PR (public relations) can be a good way to increase her profile with prospective clients, but when she sent out a news release last year, they didn’t print it – but she did get a call from someone in the newspaper’s advertising sales department, wondering if she’d like to run an ad. Come to think of it, though, they did run a short item in the “Business Profiles” section of the paper when she got her CEIP certification, and while her neighbors noticed it, none of the prospects who called in the next few weeks mentioned it. There was also the call from the reporter on her voice mail message after she got back from a four-day weekend, but when she called him back, he said the story he was interviewing for had already run.
One of her biggest challenges (after generating leads) is converting prospects into customers. When people call on the phone, they seem really interested, until she tells them the price. Some of them do decide to buy, but a lot of them say they are just starting the process and aren’t ready to buy yet. She thanks them and tells them to call her back when they’re ready to get started (but she usually doesn’t get their e-mail address or phone numbers). If she does get their e-mail address, she sends them information about her services, and some of those people end up calling her back to engage her services.
But she’s tired of justifying her prices to people who call her, so she per her prices up on the website and created a PayPal link so people can just order online instead of calling to ask her how much she charges. No one has ordered using the link yet, but she just put it up a few months ago, so it’s still new.
Next Time: Average Resume Writer Profile: Professional Conferences
She’s been in the Yellow Pages for years, but her ad isn’t as big anymore. That’s because the kinds of calls she gets as a result of the ad aren’t as good as they used to be … there seems to be more price-shoppers and tire-kickers than before. Her Yellow Pages rep keeps trying to sell her an upgrade to an “enhanced” online listing, but she’s not convinced by the numbers he’s throwing out.
Online is the place to be, she thinks, but I think I can do more with my money on my own. She’s got a website. But it’s mostly an “online brochure,” and she updates it about once a year. She’s got some information about the services she offers, the logos for the professional associations she belongs to (even the ones that she used to belong to – whoops, forgot to take the logo down when the membership lapsed). Organizations change, but her website is stuck in time… there’s a reference to the Professional Resume Writing and Research Association (PRWRA) – now Career Directors International, and she followed Wendy Enelow’s advice to put the Career Masters Institute logo on her site … but now it’s “The Alliance” and she still has the CMI logo on there … even though she forgot to send in her renewal last month (or was it the month before that?)
She’d like to build her network, but who has the time? She’s sure there are some groups out there she could speak to and possibly get some business out of, but has no idea where to start the contact process. She did one speech last year to a Kiwanis group, but it seemed to be a lot of self-employed folks (insurance agents, doctors, lawyers) and she didn’t get any new clients from it.
She’s heard PR (public relations) can be a good way to increase her profile with prospective clients, but when she sent out a news release last year, they didn’t print it – but she did get a call from someone in the newspaper’s advertising sales department, wondering if she’d like to run an ad. Come to think of it, though, they did run a short item in the “Business Profiles” section of the paper when she got her CEIP certification, and while her neighbors noticed it, none of the prospects who called in the next few weeks mentioned it. There was also the call from the reporter on her voice mail message after she got back from a four-day weekend, but when she called him back, he said the story he was interviewing for had already run.
One of her biggest challenges (after generating leads) is converting prospects into customers. When people call on the phone, they seem really interested, until she tells them the price. Some of them do decide to buy, but a lot of them say they are just starting the process and aren’t ready to buy yet. She thanks them and tells them to call her back when they’re ready to get started (but she usually doesn’t get their e-mail address or phone numbers). If she does get their e-mail address, she sends them information about her services, and some of those people end up calling her back to engage her services.
But she’s tired of justifying her prices to people who call her, so she per her prices up on the website and created a PayPal link so people can just order online instead of calling to ask her how much she charges. No one has ordered using the link yet, but she just put it up a few months ago, so it’s still new.
Next Time: Average Resume Writer Profile: Professional Conferences
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Average Resume Writer Profile: Existing Client Base
Having been in business for a number of years, our “average” resume writer has worked with thousands of clients – yet she doesn’t have a formal strategy for client retention and reactivation. Heck, she doesn’t even have an updated database of clients. She’d like to create a program to tap into those clients – like a $8/month continuity service that provides an annual update, an online archive of the client’s documents, access to job search information, and a discount on related services (like background checks, salary reports, and resume distribution services)… but it’s not something she wants to develop or administer.
She’d also like some marketing support. One of the biggest challenges of working by yourself is balancing the workload. She’d like to send out a quarterly newsletter or postcard, but what if she got 30-40 returning clients all at once? She’d be swamped. Plus, updates don’t pay as well as new projects – even if you charge by the hour. So it feels better to just keep focusing on getting new clients.
Next Time: Average Resume Writer Profile: Marketing/Advertising/Public Relations
She’d also like some marketing support. One of the biggest challenges of working by yourself is balancing the workload. She’d like to send out a quarterly newsletter or postcard, but what if she got 30-40 returning clients all at once? She’d be swamped. Plus, updates don’t pay as well as new projects – even if you charge by the hour. So it feels better to just keep focusing on getting new clients.
Next Time: Average Resume Writer Profile: Marketing/Advertising/Public Relations
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