JG 'Greg' Faherty
Stony Point, N.Y.
Class of 1984
Major: Biology
Ever since I was a child writing stories and comics in the back of the class, my passion has always been writing, but except for the manuals and papers I wrote for my various jobs, I never had the opportunity — or the self-confidence — to try doing it for a living.
That changed in 1999, when I was laid off from my job and decided to take a chance. I answered an ad to do freelance resume writing for what was at the time the world’s largest online resume company, and to my surprise I got the gig.
Flash forward two years, and I’m not only a senior writer for three different resume companies, but also running my own resume website, www.a-perfect-resume.com, out of my home.
At the same time, I’d managed to score several contracts with publishing houses to write elementary school test preparation guides, and to create question and answer games for LeapFrog.
I’ve now been writing resumes full time for more than 10 years, and there isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t want to pinch myself for being so fortunate to be making a living doing something I love. I’ve built a solid reputation in the industry, not only through my company, but as a go-to contractor for all the major resume firms.
Still, there was another fire burning inside, and a few years ago I branched out and started writing fiction. Since then I’ve had over a dozen short stories published in major genre magazines and anthologies, and I’ve got my first novel scheduled to come out in October of 2010.
People say they’ve never gotten the opportunity to do what they love, or that they can’t risk everything for a dream. Well, I’m here to say that opportunities have to be made, and if you never have dreams, they’ll never come true. I know this because mine did. I made sure of it.
It was my mentor, Dr. Richard Bothner, who always told me that you should do what you love and love what you do.