Jessica Miller-Merrell runs a human resources training company with four employees that reaches close to one million professionals every month. Third-party business data estimates place annual revenue for her company, Workology, at roughly £9.5 million ($12 million).

She did not raise venture capital. The whole operation is managed through Xceptional HR Consulting, a workplace consulting firm Miller-Merrell owns in Austin, Texas.

'Workology is a training and learning destination for, really, the entire human resources industry,' Miller-Merrell said at SHRM's 2022 annual conference, speaking onBusiness RadioX'sWorkplace MVPpodcast. 'We help HR professionals be their best selves with a lot of digital resources and training.'

The business traces back to a £200 ($250) quarterly recruiting budget at a Target store in 2001. Miller-Merrell had just graduated from college and was three months into her first HR role. The money went entirely on newspaper classifieds.

'In 2001, the two main reasons you were on the internet were that you were looking for love or at NSFW websites,' Miller-Merrell told Voyage Austin. She chose the former, sourcing candidates through free dating platforms.

Between 2007 and 2009, her internet recruiting accounted for 30 per cent of her hires. Candidates sourced through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace had higher retention and lower turnover than those found through traditional channels, she said.

Her employer did not share her enthusiasm. 'My blog got me fired,' Miller-Merrell told Voyage Austin, 'but I also started my own company.'

That company grew out of a job search blog she launched in 2005 called BloggingforJobs, which she later rebranded as Workology.

The primary revenue driver is Ace the HR Exam, a monthly subscription programme preparing professionals for SHRM and HRCI certification tests. In a Workology video covering corporate social responsibility and HR certification, Miller-Merrell described herself as 'the founder of Workology and the creator of the Ace the HR Exam programme.'

Students report a 95 per cent pass rate. 'I created Ace the HR Exam because I wished there was something like it for me when I was studying and taking my own HR certification exams,' she told Voyage Austin.

Source: International Business Times UK