I've got an idea but it may be a stupid one.....

sistafromanothermista

As the title says really
I have been doing some CV work for people (free) re-doing their CV's and have been quite successful in doing so (all of them now have jobs:))
I was thinking of creating my own website (someone mentioned vistaprint) the outlay is around £13 pm but i would charge say £10 per CV.

Does this seem like a good idea?
Any potential pitfalls or things i should be wary of?
What about the tax side of things?

pledgeX

Maybe this is just me being pessimistic, but I don't think many people would hand over all their information (name, education history, contact details, employment history etc) to some randomer on the internet, let alone someone that charges £10 to do it as well! Social engineering and all that. I guess you could block out all the private parts but if they hide a lot then you'd have less to work with.

Also, unless you know their work history AND the job they're applying for in great detail I doubt you could tailor it that well. The exception to this might be school leavers going for a 'common' jobs. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I just mean a job where you'd know what is required of the job.

sistafromanothermista

True. There are lots of online places who charge for CV's and things like that though already. I was just thinking i could undercut them
I get your point though about people not wanting to give out all their details.

gb12345

sistafromanothermista wrote: »

I was thinking of creating my own website (someone mentioned vistaprint) the outlay is around £13 pm but i would charge say £10 per CV.

I share pledgeX's pessimism about people handing over all their personal details to some one on the internet, but if you do go ahead with the idea don't be looking to pay someone like vistaprint anywhere near £13 a month for your website.

A .co.uk domain should cost you a tenner for 2 years maximum and you should be able to get hosting for 20 or 30 quid a year.

Then all you need is a site, which you should be able to get set up as a Wordpress template.

pogg000

http://www.fivesquids.co.uk/tensquids?tab=1

Don't know if anyone does anything similar, but might be worth listing here.

sistafromanothermista

Thanks for all the help
I think i might need to think about it a bit more....

Kayalana99

sistafromanothermista wrote: »

Thanks for all the help
I think i might need to think about it a bit more....

Alot of businesses sink before they even hit the water because people ask others opinions and your 'great idea' suddenly seems nothing.

If thier are already online companys doing up CV's then surely the above about not giving personal details is mute because people are already doing it...the market is thier.

I mean for even £13 a month max what have you got to lose? Its hardly going to leave you in debt if you fail.

_Andy_

Problem is, loads of places/people do this already. Price isn't an issue - how you'd generate traffic would be.

Flyonthewall

As stated, don't go for Vistaprint website. Really not worth. Wordpress is free then you just pay a little for a domain name and hosting.

Anyway, to the actual idea, people generally go to the professional companies and cost isn't really the issue. Undercutting them companies may not bring you the customers you think it will. People will pay more if they feel the company is more trusted than the cheaper ones and will do a more professional jobs.

You will also need to think about how you will take the payment, get their CV and the time length involved, especially if your idea did take off and do well.

You may also need 1 on 1 contact with each customer if they're missing any dates or important details so you need to consider the best way to do this.

Then it's how do you get the customers? Creating a website doesn't automatically generate traffic, you need to advertise. Advertising usually costs, although there are free options.

paddyrg

Not a stupid idea, but I can see limitations/problems potentially...

1) Your target market is people who haven't been able to get a job, so are poor
2) If you're successful or if you fail, either way they don't come back, no repeat business
3) Ultimately you need to get all the info from people to begin with, so I guess you ask questions and get them to fill in an online form...by which point it's copy/paste or just automate the mailmerge!
4) How's your spelling, grammar and punctuation, etc.,? Do you risk making someone look bad? How would they trust that you won't??

That said, if there's already an active market for this, and people already pay more, well I guess it's viable. If you're undercutting though, why not talk to the existing companies, see if you can just subcontract. They will get you the leads, have the credibility and ecommerce set up already, and keep some of the fee. You earn the same as the undercutting rate, but don't deal with desperate timewasters and bottomfeeders, just quality clients/leads.

Flyonthewall

Lighthouse_in_the_dark wrote: »

Simply it makes their CV stand out, Sell the advantages you can post photos you can create vidoes you can post reviews etc etc.
OK this one is a bit to complex for a free site but this guy went viral and got 720k of page views in 3 weeks.

All the op needs to know is how to set up a wordpress, and even that can be outsourced to the third world for pennies on the pound.



Everyone does! there must be more fake job ads on that site than real! look everyone's at getting black hat leads, even cupid plc got caught out a few weeks ago by panorama.




Ok simple what you say is this, to keep our writing services free, we ask people who would like their site created to purchase a .co.uk we recommend (link) and to keep hosting costs down we recommend customers use hostgator for hosting you can get it for only a penny for the first month using this coupon (custom coupon) (link)

You then let host gators rebill do the rest

You're also posting all your personal information online for anyone to see and in most cases when you apply for a job you have to upload a CV. You can't upload a website address to their site, nor would any employer bother to click on a website link if that was on an uploaded word document, unless it was a design job and they'd asked for a portfolio, but even then they expect the document to be your CV not a link to the CV.

The chance of another going viral are very very low.

No, they need to know how to set up a wordpress site, how to use it and how to maintain the site. I mean they'll need knowledge of that anyway, but you can get away with the knowing the basics for your own site, to be involved with other peoples requires more knowledge.

If you're linking other people to hosting if they have any questions they'll go to you so you have to have the answers to that too.

Everyone's doing it so that makes it ok, is that right? Creating adverts to take in loads of details of unsuspecting people, bothering them all with a service they may not want and then, in a way, tricking them into having their own site (through another company) which will cost them more just so they can have a free CV.

Why not just create a real Gumtree advert stating that, for £10, you can get your CV checked over and rewriten?

Most people would look at that and think scam. How can creating a site through someone else make you money and keep your writing costs down? I know it's affliliate links and how they work, but many don't.

Are you linking to a custom code? If you lead people away and they know the site it's for what's going to make them come back and click through your affiliate link? They can go direct to the site or possibly through a link on the code site?

Also, what if it doesn't track when they sign up? You get no money and obviously you won't want to do a CV for free. An odd one might be ok, but if it keeps happening you can't keep doing free CVs. The customer won't be impressed as they'll be paying for a site they only got for a CV that you know won't be doing.

You also mentioned photos, videos etc. Are you expecting the OP to be able to get suitable photos and videos of the customers to be able to put on their site in a professional way as part of the CV? If so that may require photo and video editing skills. Plus maybe meeting them to take them photos/videos if they don't have any, in which case you need to be able to take professional videos and photos.