There is no such thing as effortless success. Learn from the trials and tribulations of a female tech founder, Andrea Gerson.
THIS WEEK'S TOPIC:
Positive change is possible in your own lives and careers. Andrea is proof of that. She now knows that her past does not define her future and she wants to help you realize the same. Learn how she overcame a number of obstacles to go from a Community College dropout to Columbia with a 4.0 GPA to NYU for her graduate degree to eventually finding her "zone of genius" as one of the top-ranked professional resume writers in the country and recent tech founder.
*Note: some listeners may find content around depression and suicide triggering. If you are in need of help or support please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Available 24 hours at1-800-273-8255.
THIS WEEK'S GUEST:
As one of the top-ranked professional resume writers in the country, Andrea Gerson has crafted impactful hiring materials for thousands of clients – many of who have gotten hired at organizations like Google, Apple, and the United Nations. She even created a resume for a Chief of Staff in the Obama Administration!
A social worker by training, Andrea started her career in the nonprofit workforce development sector. She spent six years working with NYC-based agencies, helping people from high-need communities to create resumes and get hired in self-sustaining roles. She became really good at writing resumes. Like, really really good. (side note: She was the #1 resume writer in Yelp in New York City for 10 years straight.) After one too many friends asked her to review their resumes in exchange for a beer, she launched her website, ResumeScripter.com. This was in 2011, and she was still in school. By the time Andrea finished her Master's program, resume writing had evolved into her full-time job. 100% of her clients have been through referrals and online reviews, and her clients average 40% salary bumps.
By 2019, Andrea had been writing resumes full-time for private clients for five years. The repetition started to seep in, and she began to feel less and less energized and purpose-driven in her work. To reconnect with the equity-minded reasons she originally got into the field, Andrea started pitching herself to workforce nonprofits as a trainer and consultant. She landed a six-month consulting gig to train 50 job counselors on all things resume-related. Through these sessions, she saw firsthand what she recalled from earlier in her career: Job counselors at these nonprofits were spending way too much time writing resumes that were not actually positioning their participants for much beyond minimum wage jobs. Andrea felt like this was a huge missed opportunity to intervene in the cycle of economic inequality. So she and her employee created a digital platform that made her resume writing tactics, industry-specific content, and templates easily accessible to these counselors. She launched the tool as an online subscription service in 2020, and organizations like Goodwill and Henry Street Settlement have already signed up. Andrea's currently working on an improved version of the platform, and a version for individual job-seekers will be launching in the fall of 2022.
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