Expert: Dan Smith - 11/27/2005

Question
Hello Dan,
I am a corporate recruiter seeking to develop a home business but anxious about leaving my steady salary and medical benefits behind. I am curious about your resume business and wondering how difficult you thought it might be to sustain my own resume and interview coaching business in Seattle. I'd need to bring in at least $50k per year. What sorts of advertising work best for you? How many clients do you work with each week? Are you getting "enough" clients? Do you ever get bored working from home? What do you like best about it?
Thank you so much for your insight!
Regards,
Jill

Answer
I have found it difficult to sustain that kind of income working alone. There's a lot of competition out there, and very few people even have the skills to evaluate resume writers. I've had some luck with Google ad words and am starting a little radio campaign in January to see if I can't bump things a bit. Advertising in the classified section of the paper worked some years ago, but it does not seem very effective these days.

I do not get bored working from home, though I probably go out to eat more often than many people just to have a bit more contact. I am finding that I do more and more of the resume work via the Internet, which means, of course, that location doesn't much matter. A telephone interview is as effective as a face-to-face interview for writing a resume. Unless the client is out of the country, I insist on at least talking to them.

It is richly rewarding work if you're curious about the world. You learn a lot by talking to people about how they do their jobs and writing it up. I think that curiosity if the crucial factor in doing this well. And, of course, you must be able to write reasonably polished text quickly and easily.

Hope this helps.