This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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The message of side hustle school is that you don't have to quit your job to diversify your income. And in fact, you probably shouldn't, at least not at first. Not everybody out there wants to be an entrepreneur, but everyone needs more than one source of income. That is again, our core message delivered every single day through a different story. So today we illustrate this process through the world of LinkedIn and resume writing.
Is there anybody out there who needs help with their resume or their CV? If you are currently on a job search or you're thinking of applying for a different job, well, this story is all about a job recruiter for pharmaceutical companies who has a full-time job and a family of four to support. And he applies the skills he uses every day to earn some much needed additional money on the side. So stay tuned, I'll tell you how it came about, how he got the idea, how he made it happen, and what he learned. Right after this quick thank you to our sponsor.
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Alex Benjamin's life was a combination of excitement and worry. His family had recently welcomed a new baby into the world, but with each new week, his workload was beginning to get lighter and lighter. As a full-time recruiter for pharmaceutical companies, it was Alex's responsibility to find employees for the most difficult to fill jobs. Essentially, he was a talent scout for the pharmaceutical industry. Around that time, many of the biggest names in pharmacy all seemed to stop hiring within the period of a few months.
Since Alex was paid on commission, this meant that his income took a major hit. And with that growing family to support, the timing couldn't have been worse. You could say it was a tough pill to swallow. Although he was stressed, he knew that failure wasn't an option. He began to read books about entrepreneurship and purpose, and through his reading, he realized he had been operating on autopilot for years.
He had only been focusing on short-term goals, and he wanted to learn to think further out. Alex wasn't sure that he wanted to be a full-blown entrepreneur, but a side hustle didn't sound like a bad idea. In fact, it sounded necessary. But the only problem was, he didn't know what kind he would start. So he began to figure out what he wanted from this business.
First of all, it had to be based around something that he cared about, at least a little bit. It didn't need to be a full-on passion project, but he also didn't want to feel totally apathetic about the topic. Second, it had to be cheap to start and operate. His goal was to make money, not spend it. And with this being his first attempt, at actually creating a business, he wasn't willing to take a risk.
Finally, he had to make sure to fit his side hustle into his life, not the other way around. He had that young family and the full-time job, so whatever he did with the business would need to be on nights and weekends. Alex aimed to spend anywhere from five to 10 hours a week on his hustle, no more. With these values in mind, an idea was beginning to form. It wasn't exactly original, but he felt confident in his ability to stand out.
He was going to start a resume-building business. As a recruiter, he looked through resumes all day. He saw that even the most highly paid, well-educated professionals struggled to create resumes that were compelling and attractive. And these were people in the medical field with six-figure incomes. Sometimes even the pharmaceutical writers had resumes riddled with grammatical errors and inconsistent formatting.
But Alex knew he could help. He understood the ins and outs of resume writing. He knew what attracted employers and what pushed them away. After all, it was his full-time job to hire people. To start, he did some research on LinkedIn to see what his competition was charging.
Many of them offered packages in the $100 to $200 range, and some of them offered larger packages around $500. Alex wanted his service to be accessible. So once again, he turned to LinkedIn. He created a multiple choice survey that basically said, "Hey, for anybody out there who would be open to a resume service, what would you consider to be a reasonable price range?" He gave five different options and hoped that at least a small percentage of his roughly 18,000 connections would find the time to share their opinions. There were some outliers who thought that paying anything over $50 was criminal, and some who were willing to shell out $500 or more to take the task off their already full plates.
But for the most part, he discovered that his initial thoughts were right on the money. The vast majority of his connections thought that the $100 to $200 range provided the most value. The writing on the wall was crisp, clear, and in 12-point Times New Roman. He would call his new business Recruiter Written. Alex made a website using Weebly and focused on offering a few different options.
Option one, a professionally written resume for $179. Option two, a professionally written resume and a LinkedIn profile complete with keyword optimization for $299. Option three, a professionally written resume, that LinkedIn profile, a customized cover letter template and a customized thank you letter template for $399. So he's got this range of about $180 up to $400. And then he goes out to market despite focusing the bulk of his efforts on those 18,000 LinkedIn connections.
At first, Alex had a hard time selling his service. He didn't have any examples of resumes he had created on his website, so his potential customers didn't feel confident in spending $200. To solve this problem, Alex offered to redo one of his friends' resumes for free in exchange for being able to use it as a sample. After that, business started to pick up. He says that he now averages roughly eight to nine clients a month and brings in an extra $1,500, again, using a skill that he already had.
Because he chose a side hustle closely aligned with his career, Alex went from idea to launch in little over a month. Not only that, but he could be confident in the service he was providing. From that very first resume, he knew that he had made a phenomenal end product. Recruiter written didn't just make him money, it was also a source of fulfillment. Alex left every client knowing that he had truly helped them.
Finally, choosing to base his side hustle around his full-time job allowed him to sharpen his skills further. Now he can dive deeper into the minuscule details of the resumes he sifts through at work. Plus he's made connections within his side hustle that he can utilize as a recruiter. It's a win-win that has allowed him to diversify his income even as the industry returned to strength. He can earn this extra money month after month doing something he's good at and already in the mindset to work on.
Failure was not an option, so he chose this route instead. [Music]
All right, so this is a very practical service. I always love services that are super specific and you can say, okay, this person's going to exchange this amount of money and here's what they're going to receive in return. It can often be much easier to sell this kind of service than something that is a bit more generic, like career coaching, for example. Career coaching, business strategy, life coaching, all that kind of stuff, it's really nebulous.
So to be able to say, here is a product, you're gonna pay this and I'm gonna give you this deliverable, it just makes life so much easier. It reduces the decision process for anyone who is a potential client. And then to find those clients, Alex went to the people he knew. He was a recruiter, he was proficient at using LinkedIn. In fact, he accumulated something like 18,000 connections over the years, which is remarkable on its own.
I think I have been using LinkedIn for probably a decade or something and I think I have around 15,000 connections. So he's definitely got a wide base of people there. And then he thought carefully about the best possible pricing. He created three package options, which is always a good idea, give people a chance to purchase a package or a bundle and uploaded a sample resume so that people would have an idea of the value they would receive for their $200 or whatever package they paid for it. So the results speak for themselves.
It's not a side hustle where he's gonna get rich, but to be able to earn an extra $1,500 a month in his spare time, again, doing something that he's already in the mindset to work on, for him, it's a big win. And I know that's the kind of thing that a lot of our listeners are hoping to create as well. So let this be a model to you, let this be a source of inspiration perhaps, and I hope you'll also turn it into something practical and tangible. That's my encouragement for you today. Thanks so much for listening.
If you'd like to check out these show notes for this episode, just go to sidehustleschool.com/663. That is episode 663. I'm also on LinkedIn, although I don't have as many connections as Alex does, but you can find me at my name, Chris Guillipo. That last name is spelled G-U-I-L-L-E-B-E-A-U. And it's the same on Twitter and Facebook.
Hit me up there. Let me know what you're working on. I will be cheerleading for you. And I'll also be back again tomorrow with another story. So be sure to subscribe.
So much more is to come. Signing off now. Once again, this is Side Hustle School.
