We were lucky to catch up with Nickquolette Barrett recently and have shared our conversation below.

Nickquolette, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

My idea for my business came from two of my direct reports while working as an Insurance Claim Team Manager. Our organization went through a growth spurt and there was a need to prepare our employees for new opportunities that included a promotion and increase in salary. That increase was anywhere from 15% to 50% of their current salary.

As a leader, we are responsible for preparing our employees for career advancement so this was nothing abnormal. So I got to work. I worked with my team of 11 to get them ready which included writing internal resumes and interview preparation. Before submitting their internal resume, I asked them to send it to me for review. All but one took me up on it. The one was getting married and would be leaving the company to live in another city.

Well, I got the resumes and reviewed them. Needless to say, the resumes needed help….a lot of help. The problem I saw needing to be solved was helping the employee write a resume that the recruiter and hiring manager would understand so the employee would get an interview. I always say that the job of a resume is to land the interview, not the job. The job is landed by your ability to present yourself well in an interview so you can land the job.

So, one by one, I had the employee sit next to me and tell me their “career story”. I would type and wordsmith what they told me so that the reviewer would get a good idea of who the employee was and the skills, experience, and past successes they were able to bring to the new role. In writing their internal resumes, we proceeded to work on interviewing skills as some of the positions required interviews while others did not.

Ten out of my 11 employees received promotions and salary increases. Two of my eleven who received the largest increase in their salaries (50%) came into my office and suggested I do this as a business as if they didn’t work for me, they would pay me. They said I’m very good at it. I asked the question of “people pay for this?” and then it dawned on me a few years back, I paid a service to write my resume. It was not very good and I had to rewrite it my self.

I have always loved writing and have always had a way with words dating back to my high school years where I had a great English teacher named Mr. Lovelace who taught me the art of writing. It was fun for me. The interesting thing about how this became an endeavor is the shear magnitude of the assistance I was giving to my team and beyond. Word began to spread of my throughout my department and our sister department and I began to get even more requests to assist. I had to turn down requests as it was taking over my actual assigned job as a Claim Team Manager.

I knew then that this was something I needed to pursue.

Nickquolette, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a born and raised Chicagoan. I grew up in the inner city on the south side. I was an honors student in grade school and high school. I graduated number three in my high school class and went on to pursue Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UofI).

After about a year of studies in the Engineering college, I realized it was not a field I wanted to pursue. I decided to change my major to international business as I had taken Spanish classed all through high school, studied in Peru, South America, and kept taking Spanish courses in college for fun. The funny thing was, there was no such International Business major at UofI and so I was on the brink of transferring to another university that had it. Well, to keep me at the university, my dean decided to create the major for me or rather piece it together. I’d like to say that I was the first at UofI to major in International Business before it was even thought of. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish with a double minor in Economics and Business Administration.

I went on to work for few years at a yellow page advertising company where I learned sales and advertising. From there I went on to work in insurance operations for the largest auto insurer and have been with them since 1994. There is where I found my wings. I promoted to management early in my career (1999) and have always led in different arenas – both internally and externally as I happen to also be a Senior Pastors Wife (First Lady as we are affectionately called in the African American Church). We’ve been married since 1994.

I have always had a desire to become an entrepreneur, but I just didn’t know how it was going to happen. I dabbled in a few MLMs and found I spent more than I made. I even came up with inventions and ideas. I would test the concepts out on my husband, and he would oblige me and just listen. I declared to him, that I would be an entrepreneur as soon as I figure out how and in what.

It wasn’t until I discovered my talent for writing and my extensive experience of leading people internally and externally was something I should pursue. I therefore combined my talent with my experience to become a brander of people.

This branding of people manifested itself in the form of career documents a.k.a. résumés, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, and others. I gathered all of it and decided I would take a chance and start a business. I launched iRock Résumés May 25, 2014. I selected this date in honor of my mom’s birthday who is no longer with us and to mark my 20th anniversary with the company I work for.

At iRock, we help the unemployed, the underemployed, and the unhappily employed land the job of their dreams and create a career that rocks. We offer job landing packages that include a revamped résumé, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile in addition to coaching. Our clients range from college students through the C-Suite with the bulk of our clients being at the Director level and above.

What separates iRock Résumés from other résumé writing companies is our ability to transform our clients from being job applicants to becoming job candidates in that we prepare them holistically for their job hunt. That job hunt can include an internal promotion to looking for an opportunity externally. To further separate us, we have a reputation of instilling a high level of confidence in our clients in that we bring out the best of who they are in the documents we write. We see it as a partnership as we tailor our documents for each client.

Our difference is that we are a boutique firm focused on writing your career story via the résumé and other career documents. In essence, we are not an editing company but a writing company. Our price point is higher than most, but so are our results as we boast a 98% interview landing rate and 95% job landing rate when clients engage us for interview prep. Our clients land jobs with salaries ranging from $100K to $350K with some as much at $500K. Some of these salaries come with bonuses and other perks.

We are proud of what we do, and our clients benefit from it. Our happy clients keep us busy with referrals. We do not pay for any marketing as our clients do it for us. We have 5-star reviews on our Facebook page and numerous LinkedIn recommendations from happy clients.

Last but not least, I am happy to say that I am now the President of the Society of Elite Résumé Writers and Coaches where I get to lead and coach résumé writers and coaches who are at various stages of their businesses.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best sources of new clients for me include client referrals followed by LinkedIn. My clients are my best marketers and keep my pipeline full. They often tell others of my services due to the success they have had. If I were to have a leader board, I could name the client who has sent me 11 referrals over a four-year period. Those clients have gone on to refer me others thus multiplying my client base, and for that, I am truly grateful. That lineage of clients has a 100% success rate in landing interviews and 100% success rate in landing a job.

LinkedIn has been another source for gaining clients especially for speaking and training. LinkedIn’s search engine is powerful, and my LinkedIn profile is optimized to attract the right clients, companies, and organizations looking for what I have to offer. They also do not hesitate in making an investment in my services.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The number one lesson I learned in my sixth year of being in business is that I should have hired help sooner than later. When business coaches say you should hire even if you think you can’t afford it, do it. Having help in areas that I am not an expert in and for tasks that are not revenue generating would have propelled my business further sooner. While I don’t look back in regret, I look ahead to a brighter future as I have learned the art of duplicating myself and hiring to my weakness and thus, I am moving faster towards my goal than I ever had before.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://irockresumes.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/irockresumes/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/irockresumes
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickquolettebarrett/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH_3RXsqS4KomWX9UIxuDJA

Image Credits
Charlie Spencer | Fixed Focus Productions