Sunny Lam

Sunny is a career consultant and entrepreneur who has coached clients through interviews and job searches for employment contracts of over $190,000 in value. He co-founded an urban food social enterprise and business based in Toronto, and helped attract four major media interviews from the Toronto Star, CBC, Newstalk Radio and City TV between 2008 and 2010. He also drove the fundraising efforts leading to $89,000 in capital funding for the enterprise.

Sunny was one of the primary co-founders of an organic and natural food retail market at Queen’s University that served 21,000 people directly. Over the last five years, Sunny has conducted 19 public speaking presentations to over 1,700 people.

Sunny is also the author of 101 Job Search Hacks: A Cheat Sheet for Landing the Job You Want.

Sunny is a Toronto, Ontario native with a Masters in Environmental Studies from Queen’s University in Kingston. He also has a Bachelor in Environmental Studies Biology and has earned four academic awards. Sunny is an avid student of science, psychology, entrepreneurship and marketing. In his spare time, he practices martial arts and fencing.

What Do I Do?

Good question. I wear a lot of different hats though my strongest ones are the following:

Resume writer
Interview Coach
Marketing Strategist
Fundraiser/Grant Writer
Communications Strategist
Researcher
Presentation Coach
Blogger
Career Coach

Take your pick. And I’ll wear my hat for you. Talking to people face-to-face about their problems is a big favourite (comes with the customer service side of me).

What Have I Accomplished?

I’ve helped a lot of people with resumes and interviews in environmental, information technology (IT), engineering, administration and other fields. Since I study other fields like marketing, environment, technology, recruiting and others I have a pretty wide range of resources to draw on quickly. It helps to come from an academic research background.

Other selected details include:

Over five years of experience writing resumes and cover letters for clients.
Coached clients through interviews and job search resulting in over $190,000 in contracts.
Submitted hiring recommendations leading to over $89,000 in contracts.
Provided productivity management coaching to 7 clients.
Supplied scientific and market research to 8 clients utilizing over 7 years of experience.
Wrote and supported business plans for 5 clients.
Fundraising over $89,000 in funding for a city farm in Toronto, Ontario’s Downsview Park
Public speaking to over 1700 people in 19+ presentations.
Starting up a social enterprise city farm in Toronto, Ontario’s Downsview Park up and running with a market garden, greenhouse, bee hives and hopefully fish later on — this included setting up an initial Web site, marketing, social media communications and grant writing
Executing a 4 part speaker series and 1 very large local food summit that involved social media marketing, research and personnel management and more
- Speakers included:
  - Thomas Homer-Dixon, author of “The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization” (#1 non-fiction bestseller in Canada and winner of 3 awards) (affiliate link)
  - Dr. Wayne Roberts, author of the No-Nonsense Guide to World Food (affiliate link) and former manager of the Toronto Food Policy Council (also the inspiration for my masters thesis)
  - Mike Schreiner, former VP to the highly influential local food certification body Local Food Plus
Setting up, running and marketing a university farmers market (in a highly conservative university no less) — as of this year over 22 vendors and growing…
Researched and produced a 275 page economic cost benefit analysis report on urban food production.

What Am I Passionate About?

I am most passionate about helping others show the true value of what they have to offer to others. This is why I’m so interested in marketing, communications and career related areas.

Of course other things that I’m passionate about include:

better and more effective leadership in organizations
helping worthy causes get off the ground
finding information that helps people make better decisions
help people live happier and healthier lives

What Else Am I Interested In?

As you can tell I study a lot of different things. Here are several more things that I like to learn.

Health
Life hacking
Technology
Nutrition
Exercise
Web Site Design
Copywriting
Swordplay

It’s too bad there’s so much information out there that I can hardly write about it all.

Why Am I Passionate About These Things?

I love helping others express themselves because I know they can do great things if given the chance. The only way they can be given a chance is if their best qualities stand out and they are recognized.

When Did I Start Learning My Trades?

Resume writing and interview coaching was something I learned to develop over the last five plus years. Marketing, communications and presentations is something I’ve studied for the last five plus years including the latest in psychology, neuroscience and neuropsychology. It has helped a lot with my resume, interview and career coaching side of things.

Its surprising how much of the low powered grassroots nonprofit sector really fails to get the psychology behind people’s decisions when they go into their marketing. All of this happened while I was working on my Masters of Environmental Studies and the years afterwards.

Where Did I Learn Some of My Craft?

You learn a lot from the knowledge of experts. The reality is that anyone can learn the same things it just takes passion to make it work for you. I’ve learned the most from using these skills in past nonprofit work over the last half decade and more.