I Turned Resume Mistakes Into a $400K Side Hustle: Fiverr, Career

Key Takeaways

- Clinchy reviewed thousands of resumes from highly qualified candidates at the White House.

- People encouraged her to start a resume-related side hustle, which she launched on Fiverr in 2020.

- Now, Clinchy’s business continues to grow — and even helped her become a homeowner.

This as-told-to story is based on a conversation with Seattle, Washington attorney and entrepreneur Jennifer Clinchy. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) only enforcement attorney in the Pacific Northwest, Clinchy runs Clinchy Career Consulting, offering resume consulting, cover letter writing and LinkedIn optimization services, as a side hustle. She launched the consulting side hustle on Fiverr in 2020 and hit $250,000 in total earnings on the platform last year. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jennifer Clinchy

When I was working at the White House from 2010 to 2017, I served as a hiring manager and as legal counsel there. As part of that role, I reviewed thousands of resumes from some of the most talented candidates in the country. It really showed me both how highly qualified people can have incredibly compelling resumes, as well as some surprisingly weak ones that don’t do justice to all of the skills and experience that they bring.

Leaving the White House and starting a side hustle

When I left the White House in September 2017 to accept a position with the Washington State government as director of policy and planning at Puget Sound Partnership (a state government agency), I took a 30% pay cut. During the transition, I considered starting a side hustle — and realized that many friends, colleagues, former mentees and junior employees had come to me over the years asking for advice on resumes.

Resume writing is something that I’ve always just personally enjoyed for my own resume. It’s always a work in progress, so I was constantly reading up on different trends and best practices, and one of my friends said, “You know, you’re actually pretty good at this resume writing thing. Have you ever thought about trying to do this professionally?” I hadn’t, but I realized the skillset would transfer well.

I moved back into a higher-paying federal position 18 months later when my current job became available at NOAA and had been in my current job for a year when I started freelancing as a career consultant in mid-2020. Government salaries all around aren’t quite high enough to easily afford becoming a homeowner in a high-priced housing market like Seattle’s, so starting a side hustle has helped me achieve that goal.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Jennifer Clinchy

People should write resumes with their end goal in mind

Whenever clients come to me and say they need a resume, I ask what they need it for and what they’re trying to accomplish. We start from there, then work backwards together to engineer the products and the messaging that they need to achieve that goal.

I started the side hustle on Fiverr and Upwork, but there were some aspects of Fiverr that I found were the best fit for me as a seller. On Fiverr, the people who are offering services are called sellers, and unlike Upwork, where I would have to go out and find clients who had posted projects they wanted people to bid on, which is very time intensive, Fiverr lets you as the seller post flat rates for your services. Then people who have specific needs come to you and ask questions about your services and can directly place orders. So the administrative time commitment for selling on Fiverr is lower. I was able to much more quickly reach a user base of people who needed my services compared to some other platforms that I could have tried.

Starting with low rates on Fiverr to build a reputation and positive reviews

I did start off with intentionally low rates so that I could build up a reputation, establish my credibility and get some good reviews. Then, as my track record increased, I started slowly increasing my rates. However, pretty quickly, in those early days, I had clients coming in at a fairly steady pace. There’s, of course, some variation. It seems like January is the time when people take a reflective look at their life and happiness on the job. January and the fall back-to-school season time often coincide with a bit of an uptick in people who are reaching out and thinking about going in a different direction.

Fiverr is no longer the primary platform where I’m getting business from, but that’s because Fiverr launched me so well that now most of my clientele is actually coming from direct referrals from former colleagues and clients, a lot of whom found me on Fiverr. I still do receive new clients from Fiverr, but it’s not as high in volume compared to what I’m getting from referrals now. I think that’s fairly common for many consulting and professional services businesses — once you establish yourself, then you