Colleague Spotlight – Edward Draycott

1. What led you to writing resumes? Do you have a background that made you an ideal fit for the industry?

I can confidently say that my resume has been the single most influential thing attributing to the success I’ve had in my career! Once I realized I was good at writing them; I began helping friends and family with theirs. To my surprise; time-and-time again I received phone calls from friends and family members thanking me because they just got the job I helped them apply for. A wise person once told me that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself… and I was experiencing this first hand! I stumbled upon something I was good at and it was making a tangible difference in others lives. This is what sparked my passion for resume writing… and I’ve been hooked ever since!

I do believe my background has made me an idea fit for the industry. School wise; I have a BCom in Marketing and I am in my last year of a MSc degree in Global Marketing. Career wise; I just left a marketing position working for the Canadian division of a Fortune 500 company in which my role involved corporate branding to a degree. Whether it was a marketing display or a sell sheet, I learned to pay attention to the finer details in word choice, color choice, etc. because the smallest mistake would have been seen by customers all across Canada, and could have ended up costing the organization thousands! I use this same attention to detail in the design of every resume I write because a mistake on a resume could have a similar effect.

2. How long have you been in the industry? Would you recommend it to others? Why?

I have been helping others with their resumes for the past 10 years but I recently made the decision to start my own company and make into a career. For a while it was just a passion of mine but after a number of friends and family members strongly suggested I consider making it a career, I decided to give it some thought…the rest they say; is history. I would definitely recommend it to others because helping others is a very rewarding career.

3. What is the single best tool you recommend for building client relations? Building your business? Improve efficiency?

I’d like to say the best tool for building client relations is not something we can purchase, rather it is enthusiasm! Smile lots and have fun with your job. You’d be surprised how far being enthusiastic can take you when building client relations.

For building the business; I’d say it’s smart to start with a website because often times that’s where people go to check out just how credible you are based on how good your website looks. Additionally, use social media to let the world know you exist. Overwhelming stats are now showing that people are turning to social media sites to help them find jobs! It only makes sense to go where your customers will be.

For improving efficiency; I’d say it’s smart to enlist the help of others. No one is superman and it gets tough when we try to do it all ourselves. Taking on a friend or family member as an intern to say, for example; process orders or help market your business online etc. will free up some of your time better spent writing resumes. It additionally helps the friend or family member gain valuable experience.

4. If you could share one learning experience/great lesson, what would it be?

Don’t do anything for the money! Far too often do I hear “well, I won’t enjoy it but I’ll get paid lots”. I think this is backwards logic. We spend 5/7th of every week working until we retire. If you don’t spend those 5 days doing something you love, you simply won’t enjoy life and it will become difficult for you to take your career to the next level without that the proper drive and passion. Passion is a catalyst for career success! Another wise man once told me that if you are going to climb a mountain…don’t do it because you want to brag and post pictures on Facebook for the whole world to see you. Instead, climb the mountain because you will enjoy the challenging experience, meet new friends along the way and because you will learn more about yourself and will be proud of the outcome! Climb the proverbial mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you.

5. Looking back, what would you have done differently? Done the same?

Looking back; I wish I started my company years ago and developed a client base when I had more time on my hands as a university student. However, I wouldn’t change a thing. Everything I have experienced so far in my life has been valuable in making me the resume writer I am today, and for that – I am very blessed.

6. What advice would you give someone just entering the resume-writing industry?

Build a brand! Businesses survive, brands thrive. Take for example a soup kitchen…big deal, a soup kitchen is a soup kitchen right? Wrong – think about the “no soup for you!” soup kitchen featured in Seinfeld! Now that’s a soup kitchen I’d love to visit…not because it’s a soup kitchen, but because of the brand it carries.

7. How do you see our industry transforming over the next 12 months? 5 years? What do you think resume writers need to know in order to survive?

In the USA, a recent study showed that within a sample of 300 Human Resource professionals, just fewer than seventy percent of them hired candidates based on their online personal brand. As much as I don’t like taking statistics with a grain of salt, it seems like we resume writers have an opportunity to grow our business here! Take the opportunity and run with it. I think it’s wise to adapt and offer LinkedIn profile services and other such online personal branding services. If this is truly the way of the future; why not be the one who saw it coming, adapted and sat in the driver’s seat on the freight train of change while everyone else scrambled to either get out of the way or hop on?