Building Our Client Base
“Sorry, we’re not hiring.”
Like most of our friends applying for summer jobs, we dreaded hearing those words. Why didn’t anyone want to hire us? Were we too inadequate? It was only when I applied to a Verizon store that a kind manager finally highlighted the problem to me: my resume. By restructuring our resumes and highlighting our experience, he said, we could showcase our skills more effectively.
I felt embarrassed yet grateful for his feedback, then we proceeded to spend hours studying exemplary resumes not only to perfect our own, but to help our friends as well. When our new resumes landed us internships and jobs, a vision sparked within us. What if the same could happen with other high schoolers?
We synthesized our findings and research into a comprehensive crash course on resume-building dedicated to high schoolers. With excitement, we posted an interest form in our counselor’s office to set up our appointments.
To our disappointment, we received only one response from a sophomore named Mary.
Not letting ourselves get discouraged, we contacted her and we met up a day later. The prospect of empowering Mary to pursue her passion for public speaking and business inspired us as we worked together to translate her skills onto paper by organizing relevant experiences and crafting job synopses. When her resume was finished, we hand-delivered it to the local chamber of commerce, her ideal work setting.
Two weeks later, she danced over to us with a suspicious grin.
“Guess what?”
A rush of pride came over me as Mary held up her brand-new laminated employee badge.
Word of our success story blew up at our school, and we found ourselves bombarded with emails and requests to help build students’ resumes. First it was Mary, then Nadia, Robbie, Stuart, Emma, Hayden, Christopher, Christian, Denise, and more. Eventually, the ‘after hours’ program at my school agreed to open up a classroom for us to take on more clients (this will hopefully be implemented in late January). Our clients would repay us with exhilaration and gratitude, the only revenue we needed. With this increasing popularity, we decided to make a website for students around the San Fernando Valley
to schedule appointments. I asked my clients for a name. They called us the Resume Boys. Not bad.
Our newborn non-profit wasn’t revolutionary, but it opened up substantial opportunities for struggling students and accentuated their hopes for the future. What began as a small gesture of kindness stemming from our own challenges evolved into an entrepreneurial experience—not only teaching me how to start and grow a non-profit, but also, with the help of Mary, how to support others relentlessly when there is viable potential.
When I demonstrate my confidence in the abilities and ideas of other people in genuine ways, like Mary did for me, more possibilities can be achieved than originally imagined. I’m looking forward to helping create a community where my peers and I can invest in and inspire each other to build meaningful skills and projects, whether it be as simple as finding a summer job or encouraging a teenage boy to bring his idea to life. Our goal is to reach 30 clients by the end of January, 60 be the end of February, and 100 clients by early April. Let’s see how this goes and if we can make our system more effective.
