|  August 11, 2014

Big news for The Prepary!

If you’ve been following along closely, you may have already gotten wind of some big news for The Prepary and me personally.

After working on The Prepary on the side for the past 2 years or so, I’ve decided to make it my full time business and work on it 100% (well maybe 110%) of the time. I’ve spent the last 7 years of my career working in Recruiting and Human Resources (3 years at J.P. Morgan and 4 years at Tory Burch) and while leaving wasn’t a decision I took lightly, I knew this was the right moment to do it.

Having spent the last 2 years working with clients, interacting with readers, and exploring lots of the information out there on the job search (and careers in general) I believe in The Prepary’s mission more than ever:

To provide job search and career advice that is reliable, relatable, and straightforward.

Here’s what that really means to me.

RELIABLE

In this context, reliable means that you can trust the source the advice is coming from. There is A LOT of advice out there and while some of it is great, sometimes I’ll read something that I think could genuinely hurt someone’s chances in a job search.

While job search advice will always be subjective, (every recruiter, every company, every hiring manager is different after all) I know that if it were me I would want to take my advice from someone who’s actually done the job, and had been on the other side of the table.

That’s why I write all articles on the site myself. In the rare instance I do have a guest post, the information in that is 100% quality checked. I don’t post anything I don’t believe in.

RELATABLE

No matter what process you’re tackling in your life, I always think it’s great to have guidance from someone you can relate to, and someone who can relate to you. I’ve been doing this long enough to consider myself an expert, but not so long that I’m out of touch with what you’re going through.

STRAIGHTFORWARD

Even if I tried really hard, I don’t think I could fluff this stuff up. It’s not going to be glamorous anyway and it’s just not who I am. There is enough mystery around these topics and my approach has always been to (nicely) tell it like it is.

I pride myself on being authentic and I think that authenticity will be valuable to you, whether you’re a client or a reader.


WHAT’S NEXT?

The people I’ve shared this exciting news with thus far wanted to know what that meant for The Prepary. Will things be changing? How will I spend my time? Anything new and exciting on the horizon? All good questions!

While I’m sure plenty will change as I go, there are 3 things I’m really excited to focus on in the near term: working with many more clients, writing (book + blog), and running really helpful workshops and trainings.

Working with clients:

Even with limited time, I’ve had the pleasure of working with nearly 70 clients so far with their job searches (my consulting services range from resume writing to interview prep, and everything in between). Being able to help people through a stressful process and have them see great results is so rewarding.

Doing this full time just allows me to work with even more people, and be a lot more flexible with scheduling! If you’ve been thinking of reaching out, or have a family member or friend who could use a boost, please do send me an email and let’s see if I can help.

Writing lots more (book/blog):

One very exciting thing is that I’ve started to work on my first book. It’s in the very early stages but will cover the things I’ve learned as a recruiter that can help people get a job. I think it’ll be great and I can’t wait to put it out there!

In the meantime, I’ll be posting more on The Prepary site so there will be plenty of good (and free) advice coming your way. Since my goal is that my readers land jobs, I’ll also have plenty of posts that focus on career-related topics outside of the job search so that following along still makes sense after you reach that first big goal.

Workshops + Training Sessions:

One of my favorite parts about my last job was leading sessions such as new hire orientation, workshops on company culture, etc. Based on that, I knew speaking and running workshops was something I wanted to integrate into the business.

jaime petkanics - tory workshop

Workshop on “How To Make The Most of Your Summer Internship” with the 2014 Tory Burch interns which I led last week

Since getting started I’ve had the opportunity to run a session with the Tory Burch Summer interns and an Interview Prep workshop for the NYC Fashion Career Week at Parsons, which were both so fun and I know were very helpful to those who participated.

I can’t wait to lead more sessions on the topics of Resume Writing, Interview Prep, Leading a Successful Entry Level Job Search, How to Land a Job In the Fashion Industry, and many more.  Reach out if you’re interested in having me come to your campus, conference, fraternity/sorority, company, networking group, or club.


Thanks so much for taking the time to read about all of the exciting things going on at The Prepary and for all of your support thus far. If you have any ideas, feedback, or questions about your own job search, leave me a comment or send me an email!

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