Chathurika Jayawardana is an HR professional turned work-from-home Mom in business, whose experience in HR practices in multiple organizations and cross-industry recruitment for all levels, passion for professional writing, love for graphic designing, and long years of practice in English editing & proofreading, lead to founding ‘Career Kit’, a professional resume writing service that aimed to assist all professionals with career progression, which then expanded to cover many other professional areas to help job seekers and business owners.
Attempts to Find Gratification
After I gave up my full-time corporate job in Human Resource Management, I took on assignments as an HR Consultant extending human resource management services to private companies and freelanced as a Recruitment Consultant for a recruitment firm.
Alongside with the freelance work, I wanted to start up my own business, but I seriously doubted if I could. I wished I had the professional qualifications to work from home as a solopreneur – like Fashion Designing or Architecture, instead of a Master’s in Human Resource Management (MHRM). I was craving for gratification.
It was at this point that I wanted to make a breakthrough. I began to wonder “there should be an audience and a target market for any skill, right”? I did some serious self-reflection to identify my strengths, capabilities, and passion.
Self-Reflection
My expertise in Human Resource Management wasn’t sufficient to build a business because I only had the experience as an employee. I was determined to develop my skills to generate earning as a business owner.
Having handled cross-industry recruitment, I was already aware of the many blunders people make on their resumes which ultimately restrained them from getting the job/career they wanted to be in. Often, I used to sympathize with such individuals and help them out with free CV reviews. Sometimes I re-created the CV for them without charging money, to help them land a job.
By then, I also had several years of experience as an English Proofreader and Editor, as I extended this service for a Professor of a private institute, editing his scholarly journal articles.
I realized professional resume creation was something I could take on as a small business, given my background as an HR Professional and Proofreader/ Editor. With this blend of skills, I was able to review resumes capturing the HR perspective and polish up the content. However, I felt the need to earn a professional qualification to enhance my credibility. So, I followed through an online Master Course in Resume Writing, that broadened my knowledge about creating a compelling resume, understanding the best resume practices and terminology to be used.
The Breakthrough
Finally, I founded my own business by the name of ‘Career Kit’ in 2014. A professional resume writing service that aims to assist all professionals with career progression. It really was like a remarkable dream come true.
To promote the business, I also taught myself (and I continue to learn) personal branding, social media marketing and leveraged my skills in graphic designing. I am more of a DIY person. I preferred to handle the business support functions on my own, at the outset, to learn the best viable ways of developing the business.
My freelance job as an HR Consultant and the Mom duties took up the whole of my daytime. Hence, peaceful learning could only happen during the night, after the kids went to bed.
I sensed the gradual self-development. The late-night hustles (10 pm to dawn) were all worth it, as they made me a happier person. Every day I woke up as a newer person.
I fell in love with the hustle when my marketing generated leads (potential customers) and then my first paying customer! This was back in 2014 if I remember right.
Building the business didn’t happen overnight, it took months of continuous hard work – identifying the value proposition, advertising, giving offers, free services, promotions, email marketing etc. Since its inception, Career Kit’s scope expanded to cover many other services, to support job seekers and business owners. And it happened on the popular demands of the clientele.
A Life with A Sense of Purpose
I truly felt that my hard work paying off as my customer base expanded, mostly through word-of-mouth marketing. Every other day there was a customer calling through a client referral.
It gave me massive pleasure to see individuals succeed in reaching their career and/or business goals. This is what kept me going as a business owner. Finding solutions and providing value for individuals to help them accomplish professional milestones became my daily hustle. Knowing that my services helped them succeed ultimately made me a successful individual with a true sense of purpose in life.
And this is me living my own dream and building a future for myself and my family.