A friend asked me yesterday, “How did you come to being a resume writer?”
Just in case I have any readers interested in starting a career in this industry, here is my story.
I often ponder about the road that brought me to this point! When I think of sitting at my school desk as a six-year-old, face upturned to the wise teacher (who must have been all of twenty-three years old) I can’t remember putting my hand in the air and saying “I want to be a resume writer!” in answer to her question “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Fast forward through the rest of my schooling where I was always a top performer in English. In fact I used to be a source of complete frustration to my best friend, consistently receiving “A” for my creative essays—many a time scribbled while I bumped up and down at the back of the bus to school, having left the assignment until the last minute (while my friend poured over essays for weeks to score a “C”). Language, communicating—all came so easily to me so my first thought when it came to careers was to enter journalism.
In the mid-seventies in Australia, or at least in my area, opportunities for women really hadn’t made much headway, so at seventeen and in discussion with my school career teacher, I finally put my dream into words, confiding that I would like to be a journalist.
“A journalist!” she laughed dismissively. “That’s a man’s job! You need to be very aggressive and I wouldn’t suggest that for you. Have you considered a typing job?”
The girl I was then, is not the woman I am today. I didn’t challenge her views, but simply threw my dreams in the trash and found myself a job in customer service, and later as a team supervisor. In the late eighties I scored a great role as an Executive PA where I spent some time recruiting and interviewing staff (looking at candidates’ resumes thinking “You have to be kidding me!”). Instinctively I knew there was a better way to represent skills on paper, and having written resumes for friends and family I saw the makings of a business idea. With my then four-year-old son missing his Mum, it was time to act and start a resume business, so I could stay at home, yet draw an income.
Almost eighteen years later, life has come full circle. It has been a journey full of twists and turns but eventually I am where that seventeen-year-old me wanted to be. I research, I report and write compelling stories that influence people to take action. Is it journalism? No, but it’s a fascinating, richly rewarding compromise that I have learned to love.
I am where I should be.
