Dave Kravetz: From "Overqualified" Pizza Delivery Man To iHigh.com Linchpin

David Kravetz has a graduate degree in political science and speaks fluent Japanese but when I last wrote about him in a 2008 newspaper column he was the most overqualified pizza delivery person in Lexington, KY. Despite Dave's impressive resume, employers didn't want an "overqualified" 50-something. 


I'm happy to announce that not only has Dave found an employer who looked past his age and saw his value, I'm happy to report that Dave is making us 50-somethings proud.


No, Dave didn't walk straight into a job that paid as well as the job he had at Lexmark before he became a pizza delivery man. In fact, his new job at iHigh.com, a young Lexington company with a why-didn't-I-think-of-that? business plan,  paid less than half his old Lexmark salary but Dave saw the potential to grow along with the company so he worked hard and became a linchpin at iHigh.com. His bosses noticed and promoted and rewarded him accordingly. David is now the Director of Business Development at iHigh.com.


Sometimes its a part-time job, a hobby or a "passion" that makes one candidate a better fit for a job than someone else would be. Dave is succeeding at iHigh.com largely because of one his part-time jobs. You see, Dave was the webmaster and promoter for a semi-famous musician who records and performs under the name Antsy McClain and the skills Dave acquired came in very handy when he went to work for iHigh.com because managing the website and promoting the music for Antsy McClain gave Dave a chance to learn how to drive traffic to a website, a key component of how iHigh.com makes its money. 


I always knew Dave's low-paid work for Antsy McClain would one day become key to Dave's self-reinvention but I just didn't know how. I thought Dave would probably start a business but, instead, Dave got in near the ground floor of a hot new start-up that's going to make its shareholders rich either in an IPO or an acquisition.  


What I wrote about Dave in my 2008 newspaper column is still true of the other Daves who have recently been rightsized and downsized and offshored out of their old jobs: "Dave is on sale. There's a bull market in Dave. You can hire Dave and others like him if you'll just strike the word "over-qualified" from your vocabulary. Jump the wood rail fence and shake a job application at the raging bulls." 


Experience is on sale in America. Buy and hold.


Incidentally, Dave got his great new job with help from a social co-signer who, in this case, was his wife, Julie. As my regular readers know, even a terrific employee like Dave seldom gets the job without help from an insider.


Competence gets a job seeker into a game that relationships win. 
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Learn how to turn your relationships into social co-signers in my February 28 thru March 5 posts.