I didn’t intend to get into the business of launching careers – I was just trying to make my own awesome!
I set out on my professional journey with one overriding rule for myself: don’t do stuff you hate. Other than that, I followed the path of maximal interestingness and went hard after the opportunities I saw (or imagined). Through a process of learning and elimination, I moved through a lot of cool jobs. Everywhere I went, I found myself connecting people to opportunities. I realized I got a high from finding “hidden talent” and helping it find where it could flourish. I was always recruiting interns and making excuses to hire assistants. I loved to do what some people had done for me and give people a shot before they knew they were ready.
Eventually, my official job became to help young people get internships and jobs. I discovered that one of the things that makes me come alive is helping others discover and do what makes them come alive. After a while, the entrepreneurial itch grew too damn strong. In 2013, I started Praxis, a better path to skill development and career prep than college (and it’s not even close.)
At Praxis, we uncovered some pretty powerful secrets about finding and winning great jobs. It reinforced my belief that nearly everyone is capable of a better, more fulfilling job than they think possible. It revealed that what employers say they want on job postings is almost always inaccurate, but most candidates get scared away by it, thinking they lack the experience, credentials, or skills. What we discovered as the powerful secret was essentially the art of “pitching”. It’s not a passive application with a generic resume, it’s an active sales and marketing process with something made just for each company.
When job seekers treat the process like a hunt, where they must prep, study, stalk, take aim, and fire, they feel empowered and in control. And they win much better jobs, and fast! We routinely helped 17, 18, 19, and 20 year olds with no degree and zero experience land great jobs that said “4 year degree and 2-3 years of experience required”. How? Because we helped candidates find a way to show instead of just tell. We helped them uncover their own skills and abilities, put them into the form of tangible projects, connect them to a specific company, and present that story to the hiring manager.
It works. Big time.
In 2018, I got the itch again. Praxis had become a force to be reckoned with, helping hundreds of people opt out of college for something better. But I sensed an opportunity. We couldn’t deliver the intense, in-depth life-changing Praxis experience to the whole world. It’s too demanding and not everyone can do it. But we could peel off that one layer – the secrets of the job hunt – and build the best job-hunting platform the world has ever known.
Crash was born.
We spent the last 18 months refining a powerful tool to create digital profiles and tailored pitches and run the job hunt like a pro. Early users have had tremendous success – nearly 1,200 interviews and 400 job offers, just among a small group of beta users, most of it during a tough 2020 job market. Crash pitches get a response over 80% of the time, and lead to a job offer over 30% of the time.
We’ve learned that a product isn’t quite enough for everyone. This approach is so new, and so different from what everyone’s been taught, so job seekers don’t just need tools, they need to actually see the world differently – to see their own value, and all of the great companies who could use it. They need a radical new perspective on the job hunt, and a guide along the way. We always say, Crash is really a mindset wrapped in a product.
Today, I’m thrilled to announce the launch of a comprehensive course designed to walk job-hunters through, step-by-step, the process of finding and winning jobs that we’ve seen work time and time again. There’s something magical about watching downtrodden job-seekers go from depressed to empowered when they reframe the whole process and take charge. It not only changes the outcome, but it makes the process of job hunting itself actually exciting, interesting, and fun!
This course is a distillation of not only my learnings (and secrets! You’ve gotta add the word “secrets” to really get those clicks! ;-) over the last 15 years, but of the entire Praxis team, Crash team, and all our thousands of customers and users. We’ve been deep in the career launch world for a long time, and teased out some stuff that seems obvious after you learn it, but nobody is taught! People are still taught to get good grades, format their resume, and click apply 150 times and wait and hope. Boo. That’s some bullshit if you ask me.
If you or someone you know is on the job hunt, or might be soon, go check out:
Job Hunting 101: A Crash Course
And give me some feedback! Let me know how you like it, and how we can make it even better!
The course is a one-time purchase of $120, and comes with lifetime access to the entire Crash job-hunting platform and tools, and access to the Crasher Slack group. Plus the whole Crash team and community at your back.
Our mission is to help people discover and do what makes them come alive. I’m excited about this course, because it is the best distillation of the key steps in this process we have yet found.
Go forth and create a great career!