What the practice did
The core service was career development: résumés, cover letters, applications and the job search itself. Around it sat writing help, STEM tutoring and general coaching for young men on presentation, communication and confidence.
We planned a website where someone could upload a résumé, have it checked and receive matched openings. That product was never built. The practice ran on people, documents and spreadsheets, and this page describes that work as it was.
How the work ran
Every engagement followed the same written sequence, kept as templates so any of us could run it.
- Intake call. A background template captured goals, key abilities, weaknesses, accomplishments and the stories behind them, followed by a recap of what we would deliver and what we needed from the client.
- Résumé review. A second template recorded first impressions of design and content, believability, memorability, and which experiences were most likely to matter to an employer.
- Résumé rebuild. The résumé was rewritten into a standard one-page format, then shared for comments and revised.
- Tailored job search. A spreadsheet of researched roles, described below.
- Tracking. A client book listed each person's deliverables with due dates set 7, 10 and 14 days after intake, and each client had a shared folder holding the current versions.
The job-search frames
Instead of one long list of openings, each client received three or four frames: distinct directions their background could support, such as corporate law, activism and public service for one pre-law student. Each frame held about three to six current roles, internships, fellowships or scholarships.
| Column | What went in it |
|---|---|
| Role or program | Title and organization, United States only |
| Description | What the organization values or what the role involves |
| Why you fit | The match between this person's intake notes and the requirements |
| Links | Application and information pages |
| Deadline | Where one applied |
The research method was written down too: start from the person's most wanted role, search job boards chosen by industry rather than one general site, identify the ten or so most prominent organizations in each frame, check that each role is open and in the United States, and only then write the fit notes from the intake record.
The website
I built the practice's site with Next.js, TypeScript and Tailwind CSS, with page content in Prismic so sections can be edited without code. It started from Prismic's Next.js starter and landing-page course, adapted to the practice, with two booking sections of my own that embed a Calendly scheduler. It now serves as a record of the practice.
What carries over
The work was small, but it is the same shape as analyst and operations work: turn an unstructured conversation into structured records, research against stated criteria, document the reasoning, and deliver on a date.
- Gathering requirements from a person who cannot yet state them, and writing them down in a consistent format.
- Researching across many sources and recording why each result qualified, so someone else can check it.
- Keeping a tracker of deliverables and deadlines across several clients at once.
- Writing for a specific reader, and revising from their feedback.
- Turning a process that worked once into templates other people could follow.
What this does not show
This was a small practice run by friends, mostly without charge, not a company with staff or meaningful revenue. Client documents are private and are not shown here, and this page makes no claim about the outcomes of the people we worked with. The website is a small marketing site built on a course project, not a custom application.