In this interview series by Website Planet, I talk to digital business leaders, who share their untold truths, tips, stories and insights on what it really takes to build a successful online business. A deep dive into decades of hands-on experience that will immediately help you build and grow your online presence.
Ed Huang is the Co-Founder and executive director of Resume Genius. Resume Genius has helped millions of people land fulfilling career opportunities, including at Fortune 500 companies. Over 60 million people have used Resume Genius AI resume builder to craft resumes, CVs, and cover letters tailored to every profession and industry.
Before Resume Genius, Ed co-founded Taroko Software, and covered managing positions at Termly.io and the Department of Homeland Security in Washington DC.
What specific gaps in your industry sparked the idea for your company? Can you share that story with us?
Back in 2009, my partner and I launched a resume-writing service to help job seekers craft professional resumes to land their next job. At that time, creating a resume was a time-consuming process—job seekers had to manually search for templates in Word or other software and piece everything together from scratch.
We saw an opportunity to simplify and streamline this process, so in 2012, we founded Resume Genius. Our mission was to create the smartest, most efficient tool that saves job seekers time, money, and hassle, while helping them create outstanding resumes effortlessly.
Fast forward, what results make you most proud so far? Can you share metrics and stories that show the difference you’re making?
By 2015, Resume Genius had already helped over 10 million job seekers craft their dream resumes. In addition to our innovative resume-building tools, we offer a wealth of free resources and expert guidance, which has drawn over 5 million monthly visitors to our platform. Our commitment to empowering job seekers with the tools and knowledge they need continues to drive our success.
Resume Genius has an average score of 4.6 stars from more than 38,000 users on Trustpilot, plus a 4.5 rating with over 110,000 reviews on Sitejabber.
What are the things you wish someone told you when you first started? Why are they crucial and what made you realize that?
I never wish for that; I’m always focused on moving forward and what lies ahead. Every challenge taught me something that advice couldn’t have, and success comes from embracing the journey, and not wishing for shortcuts.
Are there things that you wish you had done sooner in terms of growth? How did they impact your revenue, and how can people apply them immediately?
In terms of growth, exploring ways to expand Resume Genius across multiple channels beyond search engineering, such as platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc. Our goal is to reach and engage with more job seekers through diverse and dynamic outlets.
Trying different channels that may not have been historically primary revenue drivers is one way to figure out if there are untapped (or less tapped) audiences you can connect with. Our growth on TikTok and Instagram specifically has been excellent for brand awareness, although we don’t use multi-touch attribution so it’s harder to determine how much the growth of these channels has impacted our revenue.
What new features or updates are you planning to introduce, and what other trends or technologies are you keeping an eye on? What challenges or opportunities will they bring to people in your industry?
It should come as no surprise that we’re not just monitoring generative AI but also constantly considering ways to leverage it to provide users with better, smoother experiences when using our own products. Anyone in SaaS who turns a blind eye to generative AI for product and marketing will likely come to regret it as competitors find creative ways to use it to further develop their businesses.
The biggest challenge from the explosive growth of generative AI is that it could eventually compete with our products – that’s why we must continue to refine our offerings and provide an easier-to-use, more personalized experience for everyone who needs to create job application documents. That’s fair though — if our product doesn’t continue to improve as technology improves, we don’t deserve to grow as a business.
On a more niche-specific level, we plan to integrate our SaaS with a curated job board to combat the rise in ghost jobs across the US and provide users with legitimate job listings.
Job seekers currently land on our website, build their application documents, and leave to apply on company-specific websites like Indeed or LinkedIn. We’re aiming to give them an option of navigating our own vetted job listings after they’ve built their resumes and cover letters and allow them to target ideal options within our own platform. This isn’t revolutionary, but finding more ways to make the lives of users — especially mobile users, who want things fast — easier is critical for continued success in 2024 and beyond.
We also plan to integrate this job board data with our resume and cover letter products and web content. There’s a lot of information about writing resumes online, but how much of this information is tied to real job boards, or includes insights from real hiring managers? Going straight to the source here should help us provide more value to job seekers than other websites and platforms trying to appeal to the same job-seeking demographic.
If there was one unconventional piece of advice you wish our readers could bring home from this interview, what would it be?
People often say “Work smart, not hard,” but I believe you need to do both. Success comes from a balance of strategic thinking and dedicated effort.
With over 13 years of experience in SEO and managing content websites, he has coordinated over 5000 product reviews and interviews with the biggest names in eCommerce, web hosting, cybersecurity, SaaS, AI, and online marketing, to provide newbies and experts with untapped, actionable insights from the top experts in the industry on how to build and grow websites.
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