KARLA PORTER

Arleen Sarp­praicone and She­nee Rutt both came to my atten­tion as job seek­ers via Twit­ter. Hav­ing both been unem­ployed for some time as casu­al­ties of cor­po­rate down­siz­ing, they were expe­ri­enc­ing doubt about their job search strate­gies. Paul Paris invited them to be guests on the debut episode of The Ex-Recruiter Prime-Time Extreme Candidate.

Expert pan­elists Jeremy Wor­thing­ton, Jan­ice Wor­thing­ton, August Cohen and Karen Siwak took a firm but gen­tle approach in their guidance.

Shen­nee was inter­ested in tap­ping the tal­ent of the experts because she has been unem­ployed for a year and felt the need to gain trac­tion, and pos­i­tive focus. She said in this eco­nomic cli­mate, there are many who can use some pos­i­tive nudg­ing and com­mented, “Some great feed­back from lis­ten­ers came in and the take­aways are price­less. My hope is that other job-seekers ben­e­fited from the great forum and the advice given.” Shen­nee also said, “Paul’s show is a fan­tas­tic launch­ing pad to high­light great peo­ple and to aid in return­ing to the work­force. Please con­tinue to tune in, and sup­port the high­lighted job-seekers.”

Though she was ini­tially some­what ner­vous about being coached in pub­lic, Shennee’s enthu­si­asm for her job search has been seri­ously kicked up more than a few notches. She told me, “I am already work­ing with some of the great pro­fes­sion­als listed here and can­not wait to see what devel­ops. I’m Filled with Opti­mism that 2010 will be a great year and I’m ready to go!”

Arleen summed up the expe­ri­ence this way:

Here is some solid advice stated col­lec­tively by the panel mem­bers… Search strat­egy defined + Good resume uti­lized prop­erly + cre­ative oppor­tu­ni­ties+ Pre­sen­ta­tion = It’s showtime!

The show started with August Cohen’s Cohen Sense™ cri­tique of Arleen’s resume, answer­ing three ques­tions she had intended to ask, prior to ask­ing them. She went on to say one of the “Aha” moments for her was a com­ment made by Karen Siwak. “She reminded me of her own thought process in the con­cept of ask­ing “so what” after each sen­tence in your resume. She kept ask­ing so what?? You did this and that so what?? So what?? — tell me more within the resume with quan­tifi­able data, what value are you adding to the next orga­ni­za­tion? How did you con­tribute to the orga­ni­za­tion, very dense on detail, tell your story and lure me into your resume.”

Both Arleen and Shen­nee told me about the take­aways they are putting into practice:

• Jeremy Wor­thing­ton reminds us to make the top 25%of your resume count, and to use key­words from job descriptions.
• August Cohen says to “bring sexy back” to the resume, and to  brand yourself.
• Karla Porter says to “Daz­zle them from the start” and to net­work with suc­cess­ful peo­ple who can give you leads.
• Jan­ice Wor­thing­ton wants us to learn our ABC’s A:What do you want? B:What do you know how to do? C: Prove you have done it!

In the words of Arlene:

This was a very excit­ing oppor­tu­nity and there were so many more advanced resume suggestions/questions on the show-I highly rec­om­mend lis­ten­ing in and get your­self pre­pared for the next Extreme Can­di­date Makeover Show 2/8/10 – 8PM EST.

That’s a wrap until next time!