Quintessential resumes and cover letters

My professional role is to empower people with the tools they need to realize their dreams and reach their career goals. Specifically, my role is to effectively use language to:

Create powerful documents that illuminate the job-seeker's marketability.

Communicate information through writing and teaching that enhances the job-seeker's career-development knowledge base.

Provide online coaching that moves the job-seeker forward toward career satisfaction.

Apply continuous education, learning, and professional development to the empowerment of others.

What you sell / services you offer (brief description of your company):

We prepare career marketing correspondence - resumes, CVs, cover letters and similar documents.

Have you always wanted to run your own business? What were some of your previous jobs / companies?

I would not say that I always had a burning desire to have my own business. I will say that I thought for a long time that there was a market for career-marketing correspondence. The Internet made it possible to market these services worldwide.

Primarily, I have been a writer, editor, and author before (and during) my time as resume writer and entrepreneur. I also spent four years teaching at the college level, which I loved.

Have you got any qualifications? Please tell us about yourself academically?

I have a bachelor of arts in humanities from Stetson University,

DeLand, FL. I expect to graduate with a PhD in organizational communication in fall 2006 from Union Institute and University, Cincinnati, OH. I also hold three career-related certifications, including Master Resume Writer.

How / when did the idea of your website / company come about?

As I mentioned, I felt for a long time there was a market for these services. I started out being especially interested in cover letters and wrote two books on that subject. I used to wonder how successful it would be to place an ad in the classifieds of, say, Rolling Stone magazine, to sell cover letters. The Internet made it possible to market these services, and many resume writers who formerly had local businesses have been able to move their services to the Web. In addition, my partner had started a career-related Web site, Quintessential Careers, in 1996 as an aid to his marketing students. The site has grown to more than 2,100 pages and gets more than 800,000 unique visitors monthly. I was able to build on the popularity of that site to spin off Quintessential Resumes and Cover Letters.

If you could give readers of this book one piece of advice when starting up a business, what would it be?

Keep your costs as low as possible.

Who are your role models / mentors and why?

I really admire Jane Pollak, author of Soul Proprietor. Her advice about entrepreneurship strikes me as very "woman-oriented" and really resonates with me.

Excluding yours, what company / website do you like / admire the most?

This is probably a boring answer, but I'm going to say Google. I was an early adopter of Google, using it before many people had heard of it. I use it all the time, and I love the way it has remained so uncluttered. The various spin-offs (Froogle, Google Answers, Google Scholar) are very innovative.

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