How to Start Resume Writing Services
Resume Writing Services are recession proof.
Resume writing services will always be in demand regardless of the state of the economy. The reason is simple. Whether the economy is booming or the economy is recessionary, Colleges and Universities will continue to produce graduates year in year out.
The next point of action for most of these graduates is to begin searching for jobs. Despite the fact that these graduates must have been taught how to make a resume or how to write a cover letter for a resume while at school , there is likelihood that greater per cent of them may not know how to to write a resume that will catch the attention of employers or recruiters. Therefore, some of them usually require resume writing services. It is good to point out that it is not only fresh graduates that need resume writing services. People that have been working and possibly desire career change or promotion may turn to resume writers to help them in resume writing or other resume writing services. By the time you combine the population of graduates seeking jobs with the currently employed who are seeking for career change, you will realise that there is a huge market for resume writing services.
Therefore, if you have resume writing skills and you have been searching for business ideas you can start with low capital, I will suggest that you give provision of resume writing services a consideration. If you want to start this business, you need to understand that resume writing services cover many things. You can decide to include all the services involved or you can choose to focus on a particular area of the business. So what do resume writing services cover?
Scope of resume writing services
Resume writing: This is the only area people focus on in most cases. This involves writing resume for job seekers in a style, format and standard that will help them land their desired jobs. Not all candidates know how to make a resume. They will need you to help them in writing a resume that employers will like to read and then get the candidates short-listed for a particular position. They will either request for soft or hard copy of the resume. If you are giving them hard copy, you need to be sure that the printed copy is of high quality. The resume has to be proofread to ensure that it is error free. The competition in the labour market is quite high because of the level of unemployment.
Therefore, before a candidate can be short-listed for any position, the resume must stand out among the crowd.
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Cover letter: When a vacant position is advertised, candidates are expected to write a cover letter and have it submitted along with their resume. While the information contained in a resume may not change frequently, there will be a need to write a cover letter that will match the requirements of a specific job role.
Resume evaluation: Some clients may think that resume writing is something they can do by themselves. This does not mean that they will not be interested in other services. What you need to do is just to let them know that you equally offer resume evaluation. This involves reviewing of your client’s resume so as to ascertain that the resume has been professionally prepared and free from errors. If you spot any error, you can guide them on how the error(s) can be corrected. On the other hand, you can see this as an opportunity to sell yourself by telling them to engage you in resume writing. But you need to be objective in your evaluation.
Training: Another important aspect of resume writing services is training of job seekers on how to make a resume. Not only that, you can teach them how to write a cover letter for resume. You will expose them to resume format or style and when a particular format can be used. For your training to be more robust, participants should be able to return with resume examples, cover letter examples and possibly free resume templates or resume builder that can help them write good resume by themselves.
Career advice: Before you can effectively write a good resume for your client, you need to ask series of questions from him. You will need to ask about his career goal, present job roles, years of experience etc. To make this process easy for you, you can develop a questionnaire which your clients will need to complete. At the end of this, you may observe that a particular client does not have a clear career goal. As part of your resume writing services, you can then offer such people career advice. You can choose to make this a free service or you can charge your clients separately for any career advice you offer.
Mock interview: If a candidate is short-listed for a particular job, it is a rare opportunity for him. It is expected that he should be able to convince the employer that he is the right candidate for the position. Unfortunately, if you interview some candidates, you will discover that it is either they did not prepare for the interview or they don’t even know what type of questions to expect. By the time they are confronted with some questions, their responses can throw back the employer. In order to prepare candidates for interview, you can offer mock interview as part of your resume writing services. The thrust of the mock interview will be to help candidates get prepared for the real interview. You will put them under interview condition and ask them questions that are relevant to their level and the position they applied for. You need to provide them feedback so that they will know the areas they need to improve upon. By this, they will be able to go for the real interview with confidence. This can increase their chance of success significantly.
How to start resume writing services
Obtain certification
There is no law that specifically states that you need to obtain certification before you can start resume writing services. But I believe that anything that is worth doing is worth doing well. If you want to lend credibility to your resume writing services, I strongly recommend that you obtain relevant certification. If you work as a Certified Professional Resume Writer, people tend to have more confidence in you than somebody without any certification. Certification will give you confidence when you are prospecting for jobs. However, certification is just one thing, having resume writing skills is more important. If you are going to succeed offering resume writing services, you need to hone your resume writing skills. This cannot be over-emphasized.
Register your business
You need to register the resume writing business. The legal structure of the business may take the form of a sole proprietorship, partnership or a limited liability company. Remember that each legal structure has its cost and legal implications. Therefore, you may need to contact a lawyer or a consultant to advise you on the one that will be appropriate for you. Don’t forget to obtain business permits as it relates to your country or state.
Read Also: Factors Affecting Choice of Legal Structure of Your Business
Register with tax authority
It is good that you register your business immediately with the tax authority. You have a period of grace of six months to do this. (This may be different in your country. Endeavour to find out). After registration is completed, you will be issued Tax Identification Number (TIN). You will make reference to this Tax Identification Number every time you transact with the tax authority.
Decide your scope of business
Having exposed you to all that resume writing services entail, you need to decide what will be the scope of your resume writing business. The scope of your business will determine whether you can operate the business from home or not. If you choose of offer full resume writing services, you will need an office space. But if you want to start with resume writing only, you can effectively operate the business from home.
Purchase equipment
Also, the scope of your resume writing services will determine the equipment you buy. Essentially, the basic equipment you need to kick start the business are laptop, printer, internet facility and mobile phone. If you rent an office, then you need tables, chairs and other facilities that will make the office conducive for you and your clients.
Advertise
It is true that the market for resume writing services is huge, don’t make the mistake of believing that clients will start coming to you on their own. You have to market your resume writing services. The best way to market resume writing services is to advertise where job seekers usually hang around for jobs. For example, Tuesday Guardian Newspapers is known for job advertisements. Placing your adverts in such place will guaranteed high return on your marketing investment. Also, you can put up a website where people can get more information about resume writing services that you offer. Having a blog on such website where you can share resume writing tips will also draw people to your website. Some of them can be converted into paying customers. If you accept credit card as payment option on your website, you will be able to attract clients from foreign countries.
Open a Bank Account
For prudence and accountability, it is good that you open a bank account for your resume writing business. You should separate personal expenses from the business expenses. Customers can easily conclude that you have don’t a good system if you ask them to make payments into your personal account. Having a separate bank account for your business can facilitate the preparation of its financial statements.
SWOT Analysis of resume writing business
To further help you in your decision whether to start resume writing services or not, below is a SWOT Analysis showing the likely Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats which any business offering resume writing services may have.
Strengths
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Weaknesses
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Opportunities
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Threats
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Further Explanation on SWOT Analysis of Resume Writing Services
To avoid repetition of some of the points I have explained above, I may not need to write too much on strengths and weaknesses outlined above. Therefore, it is better we focus more on the opportunities awaiting anybody that want to offer resume writing services and the threats confronting the business.
Strengths
Writing and proofreading skills: Resume writing demands that you are able to write effectively in English Language. You should be able to articulate your points in a concise form. The length of a resume will depend on the levels of your clients. A resume of a fresh graduate will be shorter than that of somebody who is a senior executive with many years of experience. Also, you need to demonstrate your proofreading skills by ensuring that the resume are free of error. A small grammatical mistake can make your client lose a job opportunity.
Interviewing skills: You should be able to play the roles of an employer or recruiter. for this reason, you may decide to create a niche for yourself by restricting your resume writing business to your areas of expertise. For an example, if you are an accountant and you want to start resume writing business, you may limit your resume writing services to bookkeepers, accountants and auditors. You will find easy to conduct interview to this category of people because those are your area of expertise. No matter how versatile you are, you may find it difficult conducting an interview for an engineer especially on technical matters. If you want to extend your resume writing services to cover other industries, then, you may need to hire other people who have expertise in that area.
Familiarity with occupational laws and the understanding of labour market trends: Some disciplines require that students work as interns before the completion of their courses. Knowledge about things like this will help you perform effectively especially if you include career advice or cancelling in your resume writing services.
Weaknesses.
If you are deficient in any of the strengths discussed above, that will represent your weaknesses. You need to improve in those areas so that your resume writing business will not suffer setback.
Opportunity
Recession proof: The fact that the resume writing services can thrive in any economy makes it attractive to anyone that may be interested in the business.
Read Also: Best Business Ideas in a Recession
Problem of unemployment: Millions of graduates are roaming about the streets looking for jobs that are not existent. Any time a vacant position is advertised, you receive thousands of resume for the same position. For fairness, a good employer of equal opportunity will like to give every applicant a plain playing ground. Securing the job now becomes the survival of the fittest. Before any candidate can be short listed, his resume must be among the best. This is a good selling point for companies proving resume writing services to sell their services to job seekers. If you market resume writing services very well, some of them will see the need for them to hire you.
Large population: This is to our advantage in this country. In a country where we have over fifty million people within working class age bracket, resume writing services can be considered as a good business idea. The market potential is very huge and it is yet to be fully tapped. What is needed is a bit more of marketing to the potential clients.
Threats
New entrants: In the Porter’s Five Forces Model, new entrants was mentioned as one of the threats that may make a business to become unprofitable. There is no regulation restricting people from providing resume writing services. When you have too many entrants coming into any market, the market will soon become saturated and unattractive.
Read Also: Understand The Use of Porter’s Five Forces Model in Business
Competition: When I talk about competition, don’t think that the competitors to your resume writing services are the ones within your geographical locality. We now live in a global village. The people in Europe, America, Asia and America are also competing with you. If you search internet for people providing resume writing services, you will discover many of them. Freelancers are not helping matters. The job you think you cannot do for one hundred dollars, somebody may be willing to do it for just fifty dollars. That is how fierce the competition has become.
Economic downturn: Even though resume writing services are recession proof, the business can suffer a big blow during economic downturn. That is not to say that resume writing services will not be required, the problem is the ability of prospective clients to pay.
Free resources: There is no information that you need that you cannot find on the internet if only you can search enough. There are various free resume builder, resume templates and resume examples, cover letter examples. This means that people on their own can learn how to write a resume and how to write a cover letter by themselves. With this trend, resume writing services may soon become unattractive.
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