We are excited to have Lisa Rangel on the podcast!
Lisa and her team are known to be the leading firm to help you land a job through their resume and consulting services! She is the Founder/CEO of ChameleonResumes.com, the premier executive resume writing and job landing consulting firm, and JobLandingAcademy.com, the top-tier resource career store.
Lisa’s mission in life is to make the world a happier place with one fulfilling, well-paying job change at a time using her 4-Step M.E.T.A. Job Landing System. Chameleon Resumes has worked successfully with clients landing executive and senior-level roles in 88 countries worldwide since 2009. Prior to opening Chameleon, Lisa was an executive recruiter for 13 years. Now she and her team of executive resume writers and job landing consultants, with 100+ years combined corporate and search firm recruiting expertise, reverse-engineer the hiring process so job seekers can land senior leadership roles faster.
Lisa’s site ChameleonResumes.com was named a Forbes Top Career Website. Additionally, Lisa is the longest-running Linkedin Premium Career Group Moderator for eight years with membership growing from under 100k to 2 million members during her tenure. She is featured in over 200+ media publications such as Fortune, Forbes, Newsweek, Fast Company, Business Insider, LinkedIn, BBC, Investor’s Business Daily, Crain’s New York, Chicago Tribune, eFinancialCareers, Yahoo!, Monster, US News & World Report, Good Morning America & Fox Business News. Lisa is a proud graduate of Cornell University and the first in her family to go to college.
She is the author of The Job Landing Mindset plus 15 additional job landing resources, as well as a member of the Professional Association of Resume Writers, The National Resume Writers’ Association and Career Counselors Consortium. While her speciality is executive resume writing and senior-level job landing, she is committed to making job landing resources accessible to all job seekers who want to land fulfilling roles.
Social Links:
Chameleon
Job Landing Academy
LinkedIn
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Facebook
YouTube
Transcript
John Simon 0:06
Welcome to Simon Says Inspire, a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, SR and I'm Dina Simon. Our guest today is Lisa Rangel. Lisa is the founder and CEO of Chameleonresume.com, the premier executive resume writing and job landing consulting firm, and also job landing academy.com. Lisa, welcome to our podcast.
Lisa 0:32
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.
John Simon 0:35
Well, great, Lisa, why don't you take a minute and tell our listening audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you live and what you like to do sometimes, if you have some spare time,
Dina Simon 0:45
yeah, no, definitely have spare time, right, which I'm happy to say, is not something I always valued, but I'll tell you a little bit about that. I live in New Jersey. I live by the beach, which has been a dream of mine and my whole life, and my husband and I made that come true about three years ago and married a little over 30 years. I have two kids that are in their early 20s, and I'm a first generation college student, and went into the hotel business right after college and learned service. And, I think I've brought that theme through my whole life, because I ended up leaving that business and became an executive recruiter. Did that for 13 years, and loved it, and that parlayed me into what I do now, which is executive resume writing and job landing consulting. And I've been doing that now for since 2009.
And Lisa, not just a first time, like in your family, college as a graduate, like also going to Cornell University. So not, yeah, so very, very, I'm sure your parents are very proud.
Yes, they are. Thank you. It was completely unfamiliar territory. You know, my my parents, my dad works at the post office, all the positions, you know, the the desk, the carrier, the janitor, my my mom was teacher's aide and worked her way up to being as a executive assistant at the Board of Ed in the town we lived in, or town I grew up in, in New Jersey, and as a, you know, the first, the first child, of My mom and dad, actually, and oldest grandchild, and, you know, oldest in many ways, especially on my mom's side of the family. So it was really unfamiliar territory to go away to school and go to way to a really great school. So,
I've been a lot of pressure on you too.
Lisa 2:36
You know, it was just pressure I put on myself, to be honest. You know, at the risk of sounding dramatic, of you going to Cornell as you know, my my ticket out of wherever you know, because it was so bad as most teenagers think where they grow up as bad, and then you come to appreciate it as you get older. But, but I definitely viewed it as an opportunity that I actually got into Cornell as an engineering student and realized I didn't like it very quickly and but, you know, I didn't want to leave, because I knew it was definitely a great opportunity to be there. So I often joked that I was going to graduate from there, even if it was with a basket weaving degree. But I went to the hotel school, and that's where I really, I really loved it, and I had waited tables and did some food service types work in high school, but that's where I really came to love it. And I thought I was going to design restaurants, you know, merging my engineering and hospitality knowledge, but in working at restaurants to get a better feel for how they operate, I wound up never leaving because I really loved it so,
John Simon 2:36
In reading your resume a little bit, I love your mission to make the world a happier place with one fulfilling, well paying job change at a time. That's pretty succinct, right there.
Dina Simon 3:51
You know, we spend so much time at work, and I think that if you don't have a sustainable living and/or you're not happy at it, it's gonna affect other areas of your life. And so I just think that we can, you know, my team and I, if we can help people do that, you know, that's the way we can kind of make our difference in the world.
Yeah, and I, we would definitely want to talk about your company, so I'll just share too I haven't shared this with John, but Lisa, you and I reconnected a couple, maybe a couple years ago. So so Brian Altman, who sits on our board for Simon says, Give he was in a job transition. He asked for like, Hey, who do you know? And I said, Well, I do know Lisa Rangel. And he goes, Oh my gosh, I can't believe that you know her, because she literally just came up, if you do, like, a search for executive, like, resumes or anything in those search terms, Lisa and her company come up. So he was like, I just literally saw her name. So you do have a very well, you know, established name and brand, and obviously a long career in what you've done, but love to hear a little bit about how you built it, because you do have a team. You've got a lot of people working. You know, supporting executives in their search,
you know. And it didn't. It didn't start out that way. You know, I found myself in 2009 at a recruiting firm that laid me off in March of 2009 and frankly, they should have laid me off in September 2008 because our second biggest it was a New York based firm with one office that multiple divisions, and their second biggest client, firm wide was Bear Stearns. So, you know, they, they should have laid me off the day that everything collapsed in September, but, you know, they were kind enough to keep me on longer. But it, it helped me resurrect an idea that I had had the year before, to write resumes. And I had, you know, come up with the idea of the resume company a year before, but I wasn't really ready to do it. And then, when that happened in March 2009 everybody needed a resume. So, that's how I did it. And I remember sending an email to, you know, like 400 of my closest friends, which you know, would clearly get you. It broke every email rule that exists today at the time, but that's what I did. And I probably lived marketing the services, and I probably lived off that email for, I don't know, about eight, nine months, and then realized I can make it as a business, and I had done some recruiting gigs here and there, just to kind of supplement things. But then it really started to take off, and I did it by myself for the first three years. And after that, I started hiring, you know, contractors and buying systems. And really, it just started to take off and and, yeah, I never, can honestly say I never really wrote a business plan. I think I year four, I was like, oh, I should probably write a business plan. That's what you're supposed to do. And I wrote a business plan and I put it on the shelf, and I still never looked at it. But, like, looked at it, but, like, it's, it's really been great, and it's so much of it is based on just networking, you know, and just, I have people from, like, my recruiting days call me, you know, you placed me x, we work together at, you know, at that you I mean, this is like, 2006 you know, so or 2004 or, you know, clients coming back since I started the company in 2009 and so much of it's just been networking that's built upon itself, and it's really been amazing.
John Simon 7:13
Lisa, can you tell us a little bit about your four step M.E.T.A. job landing system.
Lisa 7:18
I would love to we. We call it the META job landing system. And I actually named it before Facebook became meta. So I figured, one day, you know, I might, I might make their radar, but someone made a point that I might have more of a case. So I don't know, but we'll deal with that when it comes. But it's basically the four steps. The acronym stands for M is marketing documents. E is our effective job landing tactic training. T is our three step interview prep process. And A is advanced compensation negotiation work that we do when offers come in. And you know, when I started the company, I aptly named it Chameleon Resumes, and that's really what I started with, but, and that was in 2009 but even though I had been on LinkedIn since 2006 it still wasn't really this prolific recruiting tool at the time. But you know, by 2010 - 11, it started to be you really need to LinkedIn profile as well. And as people had a resume and a profile, and I realized they didn't know how to do the job search. So teaching them how to execute a proper job search, they're not reliant on job postings, and they're not reliant on third party recruiters. Calling them was really paramount, because, you know, having a brand new shiny resume profile and not knowing what to do with it can make for an unhappy client. So I started training them on how to do search. And then, you know, as an executive recruiter, I did prep people on how to do interviews, so that just became a natural piece of the process. And so hence the three step, you know, interview prep process. And then, you know, offers came in. And then people would ask, What should I do? So from like, 2009 to 13, I would teach, or I would be engaged for different pieces of the process. But then I basically started to roll it all into one. I didn't really name it that until about three years ago, but we have been doing that process since, you know, as a whole process, since probably, like, 2013 - 14.
Dina Simon 7:59
Nice, wow. So like 10 years over, yeah,
Lisa 9:15
and, you know, just a little slow on the marketing of it all, but in terms of its packaging and naming, but, you know, but we were doing it, and because people just needed all of it,
Dina Simon 9:26
right? Yeah, and you were doing it, so therefore it kind of created itself from a package perspective, because that's what you were doing. So you just had to figure out how to say, Okay, how do I package this? And then also, then, how do you bring on other people that can do the work that you were doing and have a similar process to rinse and repeat with people. And most of the people that you're working with, are they at like an executive level? Tell us a little bit about like the demographic for your clients.
Lisa 9:51
We market to the senior level, executive Senior Manager, senior level, individual contributor. It typically are in corporations. We don't really do much outside of corporations, unless it's a business function of a nonprofit or of a government entity, but it's primarily the business functions. And you know, the, you know, salaries maybe between, like, say, you know, 300 to 700 some are a little lower, some are a little higher, but that's probably the sweet spot, and they are focused on corporate leadership or very high end senior level corporate individual, individual contributor. And although that's our sweet spot, that's who we market for. You know, our senior level clients are first. They're professional level. You know, partners and spouses and their adult kids quite often, and as long as they're looking for corporate roles, we can help them when we have different price points for that level. But you know, our sweet spot primarily, and everyone on my team, we all recruited for everyone on my team's an ex recruiter, either corporate or search firm side, and then that was our sweet spot. So that's really what we're where we, you know, came to land when we were developing a business.
Dina Simon 11:06
I love it, and you probably never thought you'd be where you are today when you set out to do this in 09.
Lisa 11:12
No, and and even deeper than that, I was a math kid in high school, like, you know, I got into Cornell as an engineer. I was my, you know, math, my English SAT was not good. And yet, I never in a million years thought I was gonna ever be a writer. I even, you know, if I every once in a while and I go back to a high school reunion, my English teacher actually still, thankfully, is alive and shows up. And she's taught honors English as a senior my senior year, and she didn't think I was good enough to be in the senior honors class, you know. I was like, I need it to get into these great schools. And she's like, I don't know. I think it's gonna be an overhead. I'm like, I'm like, being over my head. I gotta do it. And so now we joke about it, like in a good like, you know, and she did let me in, and I did do okay, but never, ever, ever thought I'd be a writer. Ever? Yeah, never mind a date when that gets paid and to be a writer.
John Simon 12:13
I'm going to date. I get a date myself here a little bit, but I can remember job searches in 1970s, 1980s you waited for the Sunday paper to come out that had all of the all of the jobs listed in it by section, accounting and finance, or whatever, whatever you wanted for, and you'd start looking through the paper. And I'll never forget, I worked for the Hertz Corporation at 616, Avenue for for a while, and one of the fellows that I work with applied for his own job. And of course, he didn't realize that whenever he until his boss got his resume. And, yeah, that kind of ended his tenure right there.
Lisa 12:52
That's a story that's for sure. So well, yeah, you know you're saying you're dating yourself. I'm going to tell you when I my second job out of school was working at Pebble Beach Hotels, and the boss that I worked for, I adored her. She was great. And somehow she said to me, when I told her I wanted to come back to New York where, you know, New Jersey, New York, where I'm originally from, she said, Well, when you go back, you should be a recruiter. And I was like, like, and, you know, this is 1999 maybe 98 possibly. And I did not even know what that was, you know, like, but I listened. I worshiped the ground this woman walked on. And I often joke, like, I'm glad she told me to be a recruiter, not a Harry Krishna, because I probably would have joined. And I came back to New York, and I pulled out the New York Times, and I started answering ads for recruiter head hunter, not knowing that that was a bad term at the time. And that's how I became a recruiter, because, you know, Chloe at Pebble Beach told me to do that.
Dina Simon 13:52
Isn't it crazy? So the power of teachers, of of mentors, of leaders, and when they when they say to what, when you have that relationship with them, and you they say, Hey, I think you'd be good at that, and that is worth the weight in gold. What would you would you remember, what was your first staffing company you worked for? The first staffing company I worked for was a company called Quantum. They're Canadian based. I think they're still around in New York, with a small presence, Montreal based. And then the Quantum in New York. Anyway, at the time was very, very client heavy. And as a new person, I was about 27-28, clueless. The way to make money was to bring candidates in, because there were so many older, more seasoned recruiters that had really great clients, it was hard to compete on the client end. So then I wound up moving over to what was a startup in New York at the time. Even though they were Boston, they were Boston based, very prominently structured in Boston, but opened up a New York office, and I went to work for them as a sales person, as a account manager for recruiting. And when I left, when I. Gave notice my the boss from my first company said to me, I don't think you can sell. And I said, Well, we'll see. And I it did pretty good. I was very good at it. I was always like, one, two or three. And I wound up staying there for nine and a half years and worked my way up.
Yeah, yeah. Most of us that get into the staffing industry, we fall into it somehow.
Lisa 15:21
Oh, yeah, it's like a restaurant business, like, you know, although now there's a major for the restaurant business and hospitality business, so maybe there'll be a major for recruiting one day,
Dina Simon 15:29
right? Yeah, maybe there should be with talent acquisition and staff within, within, yeah, within an HR type discipline. So we've talked a lot about, you know, kind of your career. So I want to switch gears just for a second, but we also will make sure in the show notes and everything, and when we market that people know how to get in touch with you.
Lisa 15:42
Oh, that's lovely. Awesome.
Dina Simon 15:47
Absolutely. And so you mentioned a little bit about where you live. And husband, and two children, and I know your kids are similar age, like to Mandy, but are they both? Are they out of college? Where are they at these days?
Lisa 16:02
My daughter, she's 23 she just finished her one year. It's at her adult job, and she's working as a medical device rep, and she loves it. She graduated college a half a year early, and, yeah, she she loves it. You know, she's never in an office. She's, you know, driving probably does 300 miles a week on her car, and is always in ORS working with the device that she's the rep for, and she loves it. And then she did it more traditional path, you know, just going to college after high school. And then my son, he's 21 he graduated high school in May of 2022 decided his junior year of high school he was not going to college. I can't say I was necessarily a little happy about that, but, you know, you roll with it. And seven days after graduation of high school, he moved out and he got a job and he got an apartment, and he just started paying his bills, and he started cooking and but did that for about two years, and then last year, in March, decided he wanted to go to cooking school in Paris, and he made it happen. And he went in July, and he finished the certificate part the schooling part in December, and now he's at a one Michelin star restaurant doing an internship.
Dina Simon 17:18
Oh my gosh, I have goosebumps.
Lisa 17:19
Yeah, and he should be there. I think he's gonna probably be there till July, is when his work visa is up. And then, in theory, he'll come home and, you know, work here, but he followed my husband's footsteps. So yes,
Dina Simon 17:31
I was gonna say, because your husband came from, yeah, he came from food.
Lisa 17:35
And yeah, yeah, he came from that. And, you know, he he left cooking. He had, like, New York, New York City accolades and whatnot. And he left when my daughter was born, our daughter was born, and then two and a half years ago, he went back to it, walked in the street, one of the best places here, where we live in Asbury, and they hired him on as a sous chef after not being in a commercial kitchen for 20 years. And he picked it up. Like, is he, like, he never left. It was crazy. It was like, he never left. And he's doing it for the last two and a half years. So, yeah, so he loves it. So, yeah, 54 years old. He's working nights.
Dina Simon 18:15
Yeah, right, right, yes, but, but he's what we talked about early.
Lisa 18:19
Oh no. He totally loves it.
Dina Simon 18:21
If we, if you love it, right, you spend too much time at work. So if you don't have that passion and drive, and yeah, if it feels too much like work, it's not fun. I love that story, and I believe, so I believe, when I was at your home many years ago, I think I remember sitting I know we definitely had dinner at your house. I'm pretty sure he made dinner.
Lisa 18:40
He made dinner. It was not me. I could tell you that.
Dina Simon 18:44
Oh, I love that. Well, congratulations for both the kids, but what a fun adventure to be in Paris.
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's great. Yeah, they're, and they're, they're good buddies. Like, she's actually on her first work vacation, and she went to see him this week. So that was,
Well, that's it, right?
Lisa 19:04
Yeah, I don't take that for granted. So it's, it's nice that they have it
Dina Simon 19:09
Nice. Well, I think we're gonna have to do some road trips to go have dinner.
Lisa 19:13
That'll be lovely.
John Simon 19:15
And there's a lot worse places you can go to than Paris.
Lisa 19:18
Absolutely no. Yeah, could be worse.
Dina Simon 19:22
yeah, John's granddaughter, our niece, she was a baker, still is a baker, but that was just a passion as she was growing up, and she did these amazing cakes and things. She actually her junior year of high school, had to do an internship. And she actually came here to Minnesota and worked for a friend of ours who owns a restaurant, an Italian restaurant that has the full fledged, like five star restaurant, but then also has, like a deli where you can build your own pastas and make pizzas and whatever. So she worked for three weeks, and they rotated her like she had to get up early at five am to be there for the bakery week, and they kind of gave her all experiences, and she went back home, and she's like, yeah, I don't want to do this. Okay, so, but that's what you do as an intern, as a young kid, is you try it out. She's like, I much rather do this as a passion than than be, have this be my my career early on.
Lisa 20:17
Well, I can't say that my husband didn't try to talk him out of it, because it's not an easy life, you know, and but he really loves it, you know, he loves and he's working long hours, and he still, you know, isn't discouraged by it all. So it's good. Found his thing.
Dina Simon 20:32
Yeah, I love it. So, so life, leadership. So we've talked a little bit about life, but also leadership. So in your life, as far as leaders, you are a leader. You're a business leader. So talk to us a little bit about just any of your leadership philosophies. What does good leadership look like?
Lisa 20:47
You know? I mean, I just, I think that the main thing, what I've been doing, at least for the last, you know, in my own, running my own business for the last 17 years, is just, you know, everybody's an adult. I don't know, like, I just think that if you just treat each role as being important, and if we didn't learn anything like that over COVID, right? I mean, like, every role is important, and every role has a purpose and a function, and, you know, and everybody's an adult, you know, with families and you know problems, and you know sickness, and like everybody's got something, you know. And then I think just treating people like humans, finding out what their goals are, and anytime, I think personal goals can be aligned, then with the company goals, it makes it easier for people to work towards things, you know. And then it's not fighting each other, it's not it's all, everybody wins together, you know. And it may sound, you know, idealistic or Kumbaya, but I just believe it can work. And, you know, try to be outcome setting versus like, micromanaging the functions. And I just think that if you treat people who are professional, like adults, it tends to work out better.
John Simon 22:07
I used to have a saying, Lisa, that, you know, when the cart and the horse get get in the ditch, everybody needs to pitch in and have to get out. Yeah. And that's what teamwork is all about, yeah.
Dina Simon 22:18
And everybody and, you know, like, I try to also cross train a bit, so everybody has an idea of what everyone else is going through. I try to, you know, and I think I've been remote since I started, you know, my team's been remote since we started. So we were, we were doing this when there was, you know, Skype and Go To meeting and just phones, you know, prior to the pandemic, our biggest adjustment during the pandemic was all our families came home. We were all used to working by ourselves. You know, how does people here? Which is definitely not the biggest problem by any means. I obviously, I'm aware of that, but it's still problem nonetheless, some days. And you know, I think that if you just give people the bandwidth to get the work done. It doesn't necessarily have to be a specific time, a specific way. Now, granted, you know every business is different, that can't happen in every business, but anywhere, you can just let people use their judgment to make it work. It often comes out better than I could have ever imagined,
Also with the executives that you're working with, right? So you're working with people that are in transition, either because they want to be in transition or they've been forced into transition. So often, people you know, continue to, you know, get promoted or find jobs because of their network and haven't had to update their resume, haven't had to go through this interview process. So you're also dealing with people that are in, you know, that big word of transition and and there's a lot of emotions and everything that goes along with that, just from your client perspective,
Lisa 23:53
Yeah, we tend to work with people who have been promoted, sought after, recruited their entire career, and they don't know necessarily how to do a proactive job search, whether because they find that they need to or they have to, right? So they may see the writing on the wall, and they try to be proactive or, I mean, you know, someone I had hired me today is actually completely happy in their job, but they just been there a very long time, and just are realistic that sometimes things change, and doesn't want to be caught off guard. That's ideal for us, you know, because, you know, I think if a leader is saying in their work that they're prepared and they, you know, strategize and they think of different options for what may become, but then they don't do that for their personal life. You know, it's they're not practicing what they preach, right? I think when, when an executive can practice that in their personal life as well, that it could be because opportunity is coming. You know, you're called to the great job, and now you don't have to scramble say, I'll have it to you in two, three weeks. You can just say, Sure, click and attach it and send it. I. Right after the call. So I think preparedness is key. And I think in this climate, and I say this climate probably every year, but I really think it's getting clearer and clearer that this really can affect anyone at any time, and everybody needs, you know, a backup plan.
John Simon 25:19
Especially today, there's a lot of acquisitions going on from company, and you could be a senior officer, but the company acquiring your company has two or three senior officers that can take your place. And yeah, and you kind of get left out at that point in time, and you may have a great resume and a great work history that they already know those people, and they generally lean toward them, right?
Dina Simon 25:43
And you know, what's even more important than documents, despite being, you know, a Document Writer is is really keeping your network primed, you know, and it's not that you got to go to lunch every day with someone different, but, you know, check in phone calls, conferences, professional networks, professional associations, keeping your network that you can tap it at any time and then be a resource for others that helps, you know, put some, you know, it helps put some karma in the bank. You know, it's everything. And I know for certain, it's, you know, what's kept our, our business going, you know, during times for others that have been tough, it's you know, past clients, it's referrals, it's, you know, so and so sister, so and so's, you know, and it's Yeah, and it's just amazing. And, but I, you know, I go to conferences, I attend things, I, you know, I do, or do all the things and, and I do enjoy it. I'm not saying every day is, you know, it's like anything, right, but, but I try to do it where it's it's fun, friendly and business, all in the same kind of event. So, you know, I call them multi box checking events, you know. And it's not so hard to go, but keeping your network if I tell I literally was at a presentation last night, and it was on resumes, and I said to people, if you're gonna do something wrong, do your resume wrong, but make sure you don't let your network atrophy. You can get some traction with a network and a bad resume. Oh, totally, your great resume. You're not talking to anybody. So, you know, granted, you should do both, but, but don't let it, you know? I think people are realizing in the last few years, letting their network atrophy is a mistake,
Yeah, and so often they they're all in when they need that job, right? And networking and keeping track of everything. But then they, if they do land that other job, then then they don't keep up with the network and that, yeah, that's really hard to step back into then.
Lisa 27:51
And then, I think the last thing I would share, from like, the leadership standpoint of, like, what we want to see when we're writing either resumes or profiles or even doing interview coaching, interview stories. You know, leadership, you know, if you're a CTO or, you know, a CFO or any CXO, in the past, I think prior to COVID, it used to be like you were an expert in your silo. And like, that was pretty much it. And, you know, actually wrote an article about this in 2019 and then it came to be like after COVID, leadership resumes are not just anymore about your expertise, right? Not the I or the T or the F in the middle there, right? It's, yes, it's about your expertise. But you also now need to show how you interface with every aspect of knowledge that's happening and represented around the executive committee table. So you know, as a seat a Chief Financial Officer, you got to show how you do people want to work for you. You know, are you putting people through a succession plan? What you know? What's your acumen with FinTech, right? Or, how are you how is it helping marketing? How you know, like everything has to now, you have to show how you understand these other disciplines, even though they may not be your expertise. So, you know, a colleague of mine uses the college reference. It's about your major, and now you got to hold these minors, you know. So that's really what a leadership resume and overall leader present, leadership presence is about. Now what you bring to the table for all of these different areas, and not just your areas of expertise.
Dina Simon 29:23
Yeah, and even if you aren't a subject matter expert in that, you are a great leader, that you've got amazing people that are leading up to you and helping you in that area, yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that from a career perspective. Can you think of one thing that you're just like, most excited or proud about.
You know, the thing that I actually am most proud about is we have at risk of sounding, you know, promotional I have a monthly testimonial from a client who's invested in our services that landed a role working with us. I have a testimonial or two, possibly three every month, going back almost 11 years. And, you know, and it's awesome, you know. And, and everyone I asked doesn't necessarily do it, because everybody likes putting that outward stuff out there. I, you know, I've yet to see that consistent and that lengthy of a record. And, you know, I just, it's really exciting that my team and I get to do this for people. And, you know, in many ways, it can be life changing, like getting the job that you want, getting out of a job you don't like, you know, getting, you know, 20 to 40% raises, you know, big sign on bonuses. And everybody's different, you know, but these, these are numbers and and moves that can really help people stay home more, create more stability, you know, realize dreams, and it's just, it's an honor to just even be a small, small part of it. You know.
John Simon 30:53
I took an opportunity earlier today, and I did go into your website, and I took a look at some of the testimonials in there, and they were pretty impressive.
Lisa 31:02
Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Dina Simon 31:04
Yeah, think of the lives, right, as you talked about. So, I mean, that's part of, I think that's part of as we kind of talked about, those of us that fell into recruiting. I mean, that is a piece of it. You know, that the work that you're doing is impacting the lives of those that you're placing, the clients, the companies, because people's, you know, any company's greatest asset is their people. So it's so rewarding. And then we kind of take that for granted. But Lisa, I love that you have those major testimonials. And just think of, yeah, just think of the impact of the people you've placed your team has worked with, but then that ripple effect of their companies, the people that they engage with, that's just, it's super powerful. I love that.
Well, thank you. And you know, although our sweet spot is the executive, I'm gonna tell you I like sometimes, and obviously I'm super proud of it, and that's rewarding. I could tell you that I was at a recruiting conference last year, and I sat at a table with a woman who's like, you're Lisa Rangel, like, yeah. She's like, you placed me as a temp, like at account pros, which was the second company I worked at, and and she wound up, and I did accounting, and it's part of what I did, was accounting and finance temporary placement. And I remembered her, and then I remembered she was like, but this is an HR thing. She's like, Yeah, I went on to get on my, get my, you know, four year degree, and I was placed in ours, like in accounting and finance, you know, clerical work and and it's I it's just like you guys always believed in me and always put me in spots I never thought I could do. And I really think that's what it's about. It's getting people to see what they can't see in themselves. And I mean, that happens at any level, and, you know, so that's why, although I don't market for college, and college has and stuff like that, like anyone entrusts us with their friends or family, it's an honor. And I get super excited when somebody learns how to do this networking thing and this branding thing early, because now they can literally benefit from it in a residual way for decades, you know, like, and it's, it's just getting people to see how to market themselves. Is, is really everything, like I've written a few times about my dad. My dad graduated high school early. He graduated high school at 16, and super smart, but was just always like, underemployed and got laid off from like a dream job in late 70s, when I was a kid and really never rebounded. You know, I talked to my mom about it one time after he had passed, he passed away in 2016 and she said he was just always afraid to interview. And I was like, and look at what I do for a living. No, but, but, you know, not being able to care. You know, they didn't have interview coaching in 1979 at least, that he was aware of, and definitely not at a blue collar level. So I think, you know, having access to these types of resources is just really, really.
Yeah, I agree. And I thought, actually, love the term underemployed, because that goes back to like, what your mom said. Your dad was afraid to interview like that. Fear of of sometimes a paycheck is just a paycheck, and we're all trying to make ends meet, you know, just that kind of thing. But that, how do you have somebody? And what you said is, what you and your team are trying to do is as help people, you know, believe in them, even when they don't believe in themselves, right? And don't get me wrong, like,
Lisa 34:16
Oh, love working for the post office. Like, there's nothing wrong. You need the job by man, yeah, he was just really unhappy, yes, well, yeah. So here, if you're unhappy, how can you change that for yourself? And people don't know how to do that, and they certainly didn't have those resources back then. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I like to think that we can, we can help people, yeah, absolutely in a miserable job,
Dina Simon 34:38
Right? Yeah, yeah. Miserable jobs are no fun. Yeah, as just as we all said, we we spend too much time at work, and you spend that's how we started it, right? Yes, exactly, exactly, well, and then legacies. Legacies, to us is, you know what we're doing today. It's not just the things that we leave behind and you there's so much that we talked about, as far as, like your children and the cool legacies that that you're that you are living, you know, they're living out your legacies as well, both you and your husband and the things that they're doing, but also the testimonials, the things we've talked about, you know, just all those cool things. Is there anything else that comes to mind from a legacy perspective that you would want to share?
Lisa 35:17
You know, I think just that story about the woman I met, you know, like just knowing that somehow, you know, somebody believed, you know. And that is, you know, not that she's having a great day every day, probably, but you know, she's she knows that at some point somebody believes. And I just think that's really important. And, you know, and I hear that a lot from from clients, you know, we heard it. Somebody recently went through a very tough separation from a job. And, you know, she came so it's not, not even sure she was ever going to be able to work again, and, and, and not only is she, it's better. And it was not as long as it even needed to take. Like it was a relatively short time for what it was. And, I mean, she did the work, you know, like, we're not doing the work for people. They still have to do the work, but getting them in the mindset where they feel they can do the work is really, that's, that's really key, you know,
Yeah, John, we've talked a few times with people, but, and I use the word transition, so when you're forced in those types of transitions, so much of your identity is tied to your job and your worth and all of that. So when there is something that happens, yeah, there's, I'm sure, a lot of coaching and helping people pick themselves up and be reminded of the amazing contributions that they've made, and where there's other opportunities out there,
Dina Simon 36:40
and realizing that this is something they for, career continuity, income continuity, that you really have to, you can't put it all in one job. Getting a job is a skill set and having they don't teach that in school. They really don't, you know, because even college career centers, I'll have people that come to me like their first job out of school, they got picked by the campus recruiting team that came and, you know, four years later, now they find themselves looking for a job, and they're like, Well, you know, campus recruiting ain't coming anymore. So what do I do? They don't know how to look for a job outside of campus recruiting, and so teaching people how to do a job search outside of a recruiter calling them, outside of posting to job postings, is a legitimate skill set that helps someone have income continuity and that, like we were, it was, I forget. Tom Peters, You Inc, right, I maybe have the the author, wrong, but that whole concept decades ago, of You Inc, like we're own little business, and yes, you know, we can't just rely on one client, aka the employer. You have to have some things lined up, or maybe a second gig or something, but you always have to make sure that you're taken care of, so you have income coming, income continuously. That's certainly one thing I try to instill in people
I love that I forgot about that. So the You Inc, is to have, like, your board of directors, right? Like the people. Isn't that? What that is like, Hey, you are,
You, yourself as a business. Even if you're working for an employer, it's like, yeah, income that's coming into your household is a business, yeah, you know. And you have to maintain that, you know. And talking to people, keeping things primed, you know, never assuming it can't happen to you, not in any fatalistic kind of wound way, but just in a humble we're all, you know, we all put our pants on and go to work, kind of play like just, can happen to anybody, no matter, even if we had a good ride for a while, you know, Yep, good.
Anything else that you would want our podcast listeners to know about you?
Lisa 38:38
I think we're, I think we're good.
Dina Simon 38:40
We did good, yeah,
yeah, addicted to coffee. But other than little things like that, all good, yes.
And you, I know that just because I do follow you. So I mean, you love to travel, and you've got a great network of people around you as well. I see.
Lisa 38:54
yeah, no, I'm blessed. My team's great. My family's great. You know, our clients are amazing. You know, Cornell has been very good to me, and I try to be very good to it. You know, I'm grateful, blessed.
Dina Simon 39:07
Nice. Well, we sure appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your story, and we will make sure people know how to get in touch with you and stuff, through the show notes and everything. But just an honor to stay connected. It's been years since we first got connected, but just super excited for everything that you've been able to build. I mean, we've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs on the podcast, and it's hard work.
It is, I love it, but it is, as you know.
Unknown Speaker 39:35
Lisa was great meeting you. Yeah, same,
Speaker 1 39:37
same, John, super excited. Thank you so much. It's really been great.
Dina Simon 39:42
I would like to thank my old friend Lisa Rangel for joining us on the podcast. She is the founder and CEO of ChameleonResumes.com and she and her team work with professionals that are in that transition as we talked about and I'll make sure that you know how to get in touch with her in Show Notes. And we'll have to keep track of her husband and son and the fantastic restaurants that they are at, and stay posted on their fun careers and what they have ahead of them. So Lisa, thank you so much for joining. It was so much fun. And John, my father in law, as always, I thank you for being my cohost, and the podcast is proud member of the C suite radio and until we talk again.
Welcome to Simon Says Inspire, a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, SR and I'm Dina Simon. Our guest today is Lisa Rangel. Lisa is the founder and CEO of Chameleonresume.com, the premier executive resume writing and job landing consulting firm, and also job landing academy.com. Lisa, welcome to our podcast.
Lisa 0:32
Thank you so much for having me. I'm honored to be here.
John Simon 0:35
Well, great, Lisa, why don't you take a minute and tell our listening audience a little bit about yourself, maybe where you live and what you like to do sometimes, if you have some spare time,
Dina Simon 0:45
yeah, no, definitely have spare time, right, which I'm happy to say, is not something I always valued, but I'll tell you a little bit about that. I live in New Jersey. I live by the beach, which has been a dream of mine and my whole life, and my husband and I made that come true about three years ago and married a little over 30 years. I have two kids that are in their early 20s, and I'm a first generation college student, and went into the hotel business right after college and learned service. And, I think I've brought that theme through my whole life, because I ended up leaving that business and became an executive recruiter. Did that for 13 years, and loved it, and that parlayed me into what I do now, which is executive resume writing and job landing consulting. And I've been doing that now for since 2009.
And Lisa, not just a first time, like in your family, college as a graduate, like also going to Cornell University. So not, yeah, so very, very, I'm sure your parents are very proud.
Yes, they are. Thank you. It was completely unfamiliar territory. You know, my my parents, my dad works at the post office, all the positions, you know, the the desk, the carrier, the janitor, my my mom was teacher's aide and worked her way up to being as a executive assistant at the Board of Ed in the town we lived in, or town I grew up in, in New Jersey, and as a, you know, the first, the first child, of My mom and dad, actually, and oldest grandchild, and, you know, oldest in many ways, especially on my mom's side of the family. So it was really unfamiliar territory to go away to school and go to way to a really great school. So,
I've been a lot of pressure on you too.
Lisa 2:36
You know, it was just pressure I put on myself, to be honest. You know, at the risk of sounding dramatic, of you going to Cornell as you know, my my ticket out of wherever you know, because it was so bad as most teenagers think where they grow up as bad, and then you come to appreciate it as you get older. But, but I definitely viewed it as an opportunity that I actually got into Cornell as an engineering student and realized I didn't like it very quickly and but, you know, I didn't want to leave, because I knew it was definitely a great opportunity to be there. So I often joked that I was going to graduate from there, even if it was with a basket weaving degree. But I went to the hotel school, and that's where I really, I really loved it, and I had waited tables and did some food service types work in high school, but that's where I really came to love it. And I thought I was going to design restaurants, you know, merging my engineering and hospitality knowledge, but in working at restaurants to get a better feel for how they operate, I wound up never leaving because I really loved it so,
John Simon 2:36
In reading your resume a little bit, I love your mission to make the world a happier place with one fulfilling, well paying job change at a time. That's pretty succinct, right there.
Dina Simon 3:51
You know, we spend so much time at work, and I think that if you don't have a sustainable living and/or you're not happy at it, it's gonna affect other areas of your life. And so I just think that we can, you know, my team and I, if we can help people do that, you know, that's the way we can kind of make our difference in the world.
Yeah, and I, we would definitely want to talk about your company, so I'll just share too I haven't shared this with John, but Lisa, you and I reconnected a couple, maybe a couple years ago. So so Brian Altman, who sits on our board for Simon says, Give he was in a job transition. He asked for like, Hey, who do you know? And I said, Well, I do know Lisa Rangel. And he goes, Oh my gosh, I can't believe that you know her, because she literally just came up, if you do, like, a search for executive, like, resumes or anything in those search terms, Lisa and her company come up. So he was like, I just literally saw her name. So you do have a very well, you know, established name and brand, and obviously a long career in what you've done, but love to hear a little bit about how you built it, because you do have a team. You've got a lot of people working. You know, supporting executives in their search,
you know. And it didn't. It didn't start out that way. You know, I found myself in 2009 at a recruiting firm that laid me off in March of 2009 and frankly, they should have laid me off in September 2008 because our second biggest it was a New York based firm with one office that multiple divisions, and their second biggest client, firm wide was Bear Stearns. So, you know, they, they should have laid me off the day that everything collapsed in September, but, you know, they were kind enough to keep me on longer. But it, it helped me resurrect an idea that I had had the year before, to write resumes. And I had, you know, come up with the idea of the resume company a year before, but I wasn't really ready to do it. And then, when that happened in March 2009 everybody needed a resume. So, that's how I did it. And I remember sending an email to, you know, like 400 of my closest friends, which you know, would clearly get you. It broke every email rule that exists today at the time, but that's what I did. And I probably lived marketing the services, and I probably lived off that email for, I don't know, about eight, nine months, and then realized I can make it as a business, and I had done some recruiting gigs here and there, just to kind of supplement things. But then it really started to take off, and I did it by myself for the first three years. And after that, I started hiring, you know, contractors and buying systems. And really, it just started to take off and and, yeah, I never, can honestly say I never really wrote a business plan. I think I year four, I was like, oh, I should probably write a business plan. That's what you're supposed to do. And I wrote a business plan and I put it on the shelf, and I still never looked at it. But, like, looked at it, but, like, it's, it's really been great, and it's so much of it is based on just networking, you know, and just, I have people from, like, my recruiting days call me, you know, you placed me x, we work together at, you know, at that you I mean, this is like, 2006 you know, so or 2004 or, you know, clients coming back since I started the company in 2009 and so much of it's just been networking that's built upon itself, and it's really been amazing.
John Simon 7:13
Lisa, can you tell us a little bit about your four step M.E.T.A. job landing system.
Lisa 7:18
I would love to we. We call it the META job landing system. And I actually named it before Facebook became meta. So I figured, one day, you know, I might, I might make their radar, but someone made a point that I might have more of a case. So I don't know, but we'll deal with that when it comes. But it's basically the four steps. The acronym stands for M is marketing documents. E is our effective job landing tactic training. T is our three step interview prep process. And A is advanced compensation negotiation work that we do when offers come in. And you know, when I started the company, I aptly named it Chameleon Resumes, and that's really what I started with, but, and that was in 2009 but even though I had been on LinkedIn since 2006 it still wasn't really this prolific recruiting tool at the time. But you know, by 2010 - 11, it started to be you really need to LinkedIn profile as well. And as people had a resume and a profile, and I realized they didn't know how to do the job search. So teaching them how to execute a proper job search, they're not reliant on job postings, and they're not reliant on third party recruiters. Calling them was really paramount, because, you know, having a brand new shiny resume profile and not knowing what to do with it can make for an unhappy client. So I started training them on how to do search. And then, you know, as an executive recruiter, I did prep people on how to do interviews, so that just became a natural piece of the process. And so hence the three step, you know, interview prep process. And then, you know, offers came in. And then people would ask, What should I do? So from like, 2009 to 13, I would teach, or I would be engaged for different pieces of the process. But then I basically started to roll it all into one. I didn't really name it that until about three years ago, but we have been doing that process since, you know, as a whole process, since probably, like, 2013 - 14.
Dina Simon 7:59
Nice, wow. So like 10 years over, yeah,
Lisa 9:15
and, you know, just a little slow on the marketing of it all, but in terms of its packaging and naming, but, you know, but we were doing it, and because people just needed all of it,
Dina Simon 9:26
right? Yeah, and you were doing it, so therefore it kind of created itself from a package perspective, because that's what you were doing. So you just had to figure out how to say, Okay, how do I package this? And then also, then, how do you bring on other people that can do the work that you were doing and have a similar process to rinse and repeat with people. And most of the people that you're working with, are they at like an executive level? Tell us a little bit about like the demographic for your clients.
Lisa 9:51
We market to the senior level, executive Senior Manager, senior level, individual contributor. It typically are in corporations. We don't really do much outside of corporations, unless it's a business function of a nonprofit or of a government entity, but it's primarily the business functions. And you know, the, you know, salaries maybe between, like, say, you know, 300 to 700 some are a little lower, some are a little higher, but that's probably the sweet spot, and they are focused on corporate leadership or very high end senior level corporate individual, individual contributor. And although that's our sweet spot, that's who we market for. You know, our senior level clients are first. They're professional level. You know, partners and spouses and their adult kids quite often, and as long as they're looking for corporate roles, we can help them when we have different price points for that level. But you know, our sweet spot primarily, and everyone on my team, we all recruited for everyone on my team's an ex recruiter, either corporate or search firm side, and then that was our sweet spot. So that's really what we're where we, you know, came to land when we were developing a business.
Dina Simon 11:06
I love it, and you probably never thought you'd be where you are today when you set out to do this in 09.
Lisa 11:12
No, and and even deeper than that, I was a math kid in high school, like, you know, I got into Cornell as an engineer. I was my, you know, math, my English SAT was not good. And yet, I never in a million years thought I was gonna ever be a writer. I even, you know, if I every once in a while and I go back to a high school reunion, my English teacher actually still, thankfully, is alive and shows up. And she's taught honors English as a senior my senior year, and she didn't think I was good enough to be in the senior honors class, you know. I was like, I need it to get into these great schools. And she's like, I don't know. I think it's gonna be an overhead. I'm like, I'm like, being over my head. I gotta do it. And so now we joke about it, like in a good like, you know, and she did let me in, and I did do okay, but never, ever, ever thought I'd be a writer. Ever? Yeah, never mind a date when that gets paid and to be a writer.
John Simon 12:13
I'm going to date. I get a date myself here a little bit, but I can remember job searches in 1970s, 1980s you waited for the Sunday paper to come out that had all of the all of the jobs listed in it by section, accounting and finance, or whatever, whatever you wanted for, and you'd start looking through the paper. And I'll never forget, I worked for the Hertz Corporation at 616, Avenue for for a while, and one of the fellows that I work with applied for his own job. And of course, he didn't realize that whenever he until his boss got his resume. And, yeah, that kind of ended his tenure right there.
Lisa 12:52
That's a story that's for sure. So well, yeah, you know you're saying you're dating yourself. I'm going to tell you when I my second job out of school was working at Pebble Beach Hotels, and the boss that I worked for, I adored her. She was great. And somehow she said to me, when I told her I wanted to come back to New York where, you know, New Jersey, New York, where I'm originally from, she said, Well, when you go back, you should be a recruiter. And I was like, like, and, you know, this is 1999 maybe 98 possibly. And I did not even know what that was, you know, like, but I listened. I worshiped the ground this woman walked on. And I often joke, like, I'm glad she told me to be a recruiter, not a Harry Krishna, because I probably would have joined. And I came back to New York, and I pulled out the New York Times, and I started answering ads for recruiter head hunter, not knowing that that was a bad term at the time. And that's how I became a recruiter, because, you know, Chloe at Pebble Beach told me to do that.
Dina Simon 13:52
Isn't it crazy? So the power of teachers, of of mentors, of leaders, and when they when they say to what, when you have that relationship with them, and you they say, Hey, I think you'd be good at that, and that is worth the weight in gold. What would you would you remember, what was your first staffing company you worked for? The first staffing company I worked for was a company called Quantum. They're Canadian based. I think they're still around in New York, with a small presence, Montreal based. And then the Quantum in New York. Anyway, at the time was very, very client heavy. And as a new person, I was about 27-28, clueless. The way to make money was to bring candidates in, because there were so many older, more seasoned recruiters that had really great clients, it was hard to compete on the client end. So then I wound up moving over to what was a startup in New York at the time. Even though they were Boston, they were Boston based, very prominently structured in Boston, but opened up a New York office, and I went to work for them as a sales person, as a account manager for recruiting. And when I left, when I. Gave notice my the boss from my first company said to me, I don't think you can sell. And I said, Well, we'll see. And I it did pretty good. I was very good at it. I was always like, one, two or three. And I wound up staying there for nine and a half years and worked my way up.
Yeah, yeah. Most of us that get into the staffing industry, we fall into it somehow.
Lisa 15:21
Oh, yeah, it's like a restaurant business, like, you know, although now there's a major for the restaurant business and hospitality business, so maybe there'll be a major for recruiting one day,
Dina Simon 15:29
right? Yeah, maybe there should be with talent acquisition and staff within, within, yeah, within an HR type discipline. So we've talked a lot about, you know, kind of your career. So I want to switch gears just for a second, but we also will make sure in the show notes and everything, and when we market that people know how to get in touch with you.
Lisa 15:42
Oh, that's lovely. Awesome.
Dina Simon 15:47
Absolutely. And so you mentioned a little bit about where you live. And husband, and two children, and I know your kids are similar age, like to Mandy, but are they both? Are they out of college? Where are they at these days?
Lisa 16:02
My daughter, she's 23 she just finished her one year. It's at her adult job, and she's working as a medical device rep, and she loves it. She graduated college a half a year early, and, yeah, she she loves it. You know, she's never in an office. She's, you know, driving probably does 300 miles a week on her car, and is always in ORS working with the device that she's the rep for, and she loves it. And then she did it more traditional path, you know, just going to college after high school. And then my son, he's 21 he graduated high school in May of 2022 decided his junior year of high school he was not going to college. I can't say I was necessarily a little happy about that, but, you know, you roll with it. And seven days after graduation of high school, he moved out and he got a job and he got an apartment, and he just started paying his bills, and he started cooking and but did that for about two years, and then last year, in March, decided he wanted to go to cooking school in Paris, and he made it happen. And he went in July, and he finished the certificate part the schooling part in December, and now he's at a one Michelin star restaurant doing an internship.
Dina Simon 17:18
Oh my gosh, I have goosebumps.
Lisa 17:19
Yeah, and he should be there. I think he's gonna probably be there till July, is when his work visa is up. And then, in theory, he'll come home and, you know, work here, but he followed my husband's footsteps. So yes,
Dina Simon 17:31
I was gonna say, because your husband came from, yeah, he came from food.
Lisa 17:35
And yeah, yeah, he came from that. And, you know, he he left cooking. He had, like, New York, New York City accolades and whatnot. And he left when my daughter was born, our daughter was born, and then two and a half years ago, he went back to it, walked in the street, one of the best places here, where we live in Asbury, and they hired him on as a sous chef after not being in a commercial kitchen for 20 years. And he picked it up. Like, is he, like, he never left. It was crazy. It was like, he never left. And he's doing it for the last two and a half years. So, yeah, so he loves it. So, yeah, 54 years old. He's working nights.
Dina Simon 18:15
Yeah, right, right, yes, but, but he's what we talked about early.
Lisa 18:19
Oh no. He totally loves it.
Dina Simon 18:21
If we, if you love it, right, you spend too much time at work. So if you don't have that passion and drive, and yeah, if it feels too much like work, it's not fun. I love that story, and I believe, so I believe, when I was at your home many years ago, I think I remember sitting I know we definitely had dinner at your house. I'm pretty sure he made dinner.
Lisa 18:40
He made dinner. It was not me. I could tell you that.
Dina Simon 18:44
Oh, I love that. Well, congratulations for both the kids, but what a fun adventure to be in Paris.
Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's great. Yeah, they're, and they're, they're good buddies. Like, she's actually on her first work vacation, and she went to see him this week. So that was,
Well, that's it, right?
Lisa 19:04
Yeah, I don't take that for granted. So it's, it's nice that they have it
Dina Simon 19:09
Nice. Well, I think we're gonna have to do some road trips to go have dinner.
Lisa 19:13
That'll be lovely.
John Simon 19:15
And there's a lot worse places you can go to than Paris.
Lisa 19:18
Absolutely no. Yeah, could be worse.
Dina Simon 19:22
yeah, John's granddaughter, our niece, she was a baker, still is a baker, but that was just a passion as she was growing up, and she did these amazing cakes and things. She actually her junior year of high school, had to do an internship. And she actually came here to Minnesota and worked for a friend of ours who owns a restaurant, an Italian restaurant that has the full fledged, like five star restaurant, but then also has, like a deli where you can build your own pastas and make pizzas and whatever. So she worked for three weeks, and they rotated her like she had to get up early at five am to be there for the bakery week, and they kind of gave her all experiences, and she went back home, and she's like, yeah, I don't want to do this. Okay, so, but that's what you do as an intern, as a young kid, is you try it out. She's like, I much rather do this as a passion than than be, have this be my my career early on.
Lisa 20:17
Well, I can't say that my husband didn't try to talk him out of it, because it's not an easy life, you know, and but he really loves it, you know, he loves and he's working long hours, and he still, you know, isn't discouraged by it all. So it's good. Found his thing.
Dina Simon 20:32
Yeah, I love it. So, so life, leadership. So we've talked a little bit about life, but also leadership. So in your life, as far as leaders, you are a leader. You're a business leader. So talk to us a little bit about just any of your leadership philosophies. What does good leadership look like?
Lisa 20:47
You know? I mean, I just, I think that the main thing, what I've been doing, at least for the last, you know, in my own, running my own business for the last 17 years, is just, you know, everybody's an adult. I don't know, like, I just think that if you just treat each role as being important, and if we didn't learn anything like that over COVID, right? I mean, like, every role is important, and every role has a purpose and a function, and, you know, and everybody's an adult, you know, with families and you know problems, and you know sickness, and like everybody's got something, you know. And then I think just treating people like humans, finding out what their goals are, and anytime, I think personal goals can be aligned, then with the company goals, it makes it easier for people to work towards things, you know. And then it's not fighting each other, it's not it's all, everybody wins together, you know. And it may sound, you know, idealistic or Kumbaya, but I just believe it can work. And, you know, try to be outcome setting versus like, micromanaging the functions. And I just think that if you treat people who are professional, like adults, it tends to work out better.
John Simon 22:07
I used to have a saying, Lisa, that, you know, when the cart and the horse get get in the ditch, everybody needs to pitch in and have to get out. Yeah. And that's what teamwork is all about, yeah.
Dina Simon 22:18
And everybody and, you know, like, I try to also cross train a bit, so everybody has an idea of what everyone else is going through. I try to, you know, and I think I've been remote since I started, you know, my team's been remote since we started. So we were, we were doing this when there was, you know, Skype and Go To meeting and just phones, you know, prior to the pandemic, our biggest adjustment during the pandemic was all our families came home. We were all used to working by ourselves. You know, how does people here? Which is definitely not the biggest problem by any means. I obviously, I'm aware of that, but it's still problem nonetheless, some days. And you know, I think that if you just give people the bandwidth to get the work done. It doesn't necessarily have to be a specific time, a specific way. Now, granted, you know every business is different, that can't happen in every business, but anywhere, you can just let people use their judgment to make it work. It often comes out better than I could have ever imagined,
Also with the executives that you're working with, right? So you're working with people that are in transition, either because they want to be in transition or they've been forced into transition. So often, people you know, continue to, you know, get promoted or find jobs because of their network and haven't had to update their resume, haven't had to go through this interview process. So you're also dealing with people that are in, you know, that big word of transition and and there's a lot of emotions and everything that goes along with that, just from your client perspective,
Lisa 23:53
Yeah, we tend to work with people who have been promoted, sought after, recruited their entire career, and they don't know necessarily how to do a proactive job search, whether because they find that they need to or they have to, right? So they may see the writing on the wall, and they try to be proactive or, I mean, you know, someone I had hired me today is actually completely happy in their job, but they just been there a very long time, and just are realistic that sometimes things change, and doesn't want to be caught off guard. That's ideal for us, you know, because, you know, I think if a leader is saying in their work that they're prepared and they, you know, strategize and they think of different options for what may become, but then they don't do that for their personal life. You know, it's they're not practicing what they preach, right? I think when, when an executive can practice that in their personal life as well, that it could be because opportunity is coming. You know, you're called to the great job, and now you don't have to scramble say, I'll have it to you in two, three weeks. You can just say, Sure, click and attach it and send it. I. Right after the call. So I think preparedness is key. And I think in this climate, and I say this climate probably every year, but I really think it's getting clearer and clearer that this really can affect anyone at any time, and everybody needs, you know, a backup plan.
John Simon 25:19
Especially today, there's a lot of acquisitions going on from company, and you could be a senior officer, but the company acquiring your company has two or three senior officers that can take your place. And yeah, and you kind of get left out at that point in time, and you may have a great resume and a great work history that they already know those people, and they generally lean toward them, right?
Dina Simon 25:43
And you know, what's even more important than documents, despite being, you know, a Document Writer is is really keeping your network primed, you know, and it's not that you got to go to lunch every day with someone different, but, you know, check in phone calls, conferences, professional networks, professional associations, keeping your network that you can tap it at any time and then be a resource for others that helps, you know, put some, you know, it helps put some karma in the bank. You know, it's everything. And I know for certain, it's, you know, what's kept our, our business going, you know, during times for others that have been tough, it's you know, past clients, it's referrals, it's, you know, so and so sister, so and so's, you know, and it's Yeah, and it's just amazing. And, but I, you know, I go to conferences, I attend things, I, you know, I do, or do all the things and, and I do enjoy it. I'm not saying every day is, you know, it's like anything, right, but, but I try to do it where it's it's fun, friendly and business, all in the same kind of event. So, you know, I call them multi box checking events, you know. And it's not so hard to go, but keeping your network if I tell I literally was at a presentation last night, and it was on resumes, and I said to people, if you're gonna do something wrong, do your resume wrong, but make sure you don't let your network atrophy. You can get some traction with a network and a bad resume. Oh, totally, your great resume. You're not talking to anybody. So, you know, granted, you should do both, but, but don't let it, you know? I think people are realizing in the last few years, letting their network atrophy is a mistake,
Yeah, and so often they they're all in when they need that job, right? And networking and keeping track of everything. But then they, if they do land that other job, then then they don't keep up with the network and that, yeah, that's really hard to step back into then.
Lisa 27:51
And then, I think the last thing I would share, from like, the leadership standpoint of, like, what we want to see when we're writing either resumes or profiles or even doing interview coaching, interview stories. You know, leadership, you know, if you're a CTO or, you know, a CFO or any CXO, in the past, I think prior to COVID, it used to be like you were an expert in your silo. And like, that was pretty much it. And, you know, actually wrote an article about this in 2019 and then it came to be like after COVID, leadership resumes are not just anymore about your expertise, right? Not the I or the T or the F in the middle there, right? It's, yes, it's about your expertise. But you also now need to show how you interface with every aspect of knowledge that's happening and represented around the executive committee table. So you know, as a seat a Chief Financial Officer, you got to show how you do people want to work for you. You know, are you putting people through a succession plan? What you know? What's your acumen with FinTech, right? Or, how are you how is it helping marketing? How you know, like everything has to now, you have to show how you understand these other disciplines, even though they may not be your expertise. So, you know, a colleague of mine uses the college reference. It's about your major, and now you got to hold these minors, you know. So that's really what a leadership resume and overall leader present, leadership presence is about. Now what you bring to the table for all of these different areas, and not just your areas of expertise.
Dina Simon 29:23
Yeah, and even if you aren't a subject matter expert in that, you are a great leader, that you've got amazing people that are leading up to you and helping you in that area, yeah, yeah, yeah. Love that from a career perspective. Can you think of one thing that you're just like, most excited or proud about.
You know, the thing that I actually am most proud about is we have at risk of sounding, you know, promotional I have a monthly testimonial from a client who's invested in our services that landed a role working with us. I have a testimonial or two, possibly three every month, going back almost 11 years. And, you know, and it's awesome, you know. And, and everyone I asked doesn't necessarily do it, because everybody likes putting that outward stuff out there. I, you know, I've yet to see that consistent and that lengthy of a record. And, you know, I just, it's really exciting that my team and I get to do this for people. And, you know, in many ways, it can be life changing, like getting the job that you want, getting out of a job you don't like, you know, getting, you know, 20 to 40% raises, you know, big sign on bonuses. And everybody's different, you know, but these, these are numbers and and moves that can really help people stay home more, create more stability, you know, realize dreams, and it's just, it's an honor to just even be a small, small part of it. You know.
John Simon 30:53
I took an opportunity earlier today, and I did go into your website, and I took a look at some of the testimonials in there, and they were pretty impressive.
Lisa 31:02
Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Dina Simon 31:04
Yeah, think of the lives, right, as you talked about. So, I mean, that's part of, I think that's part of as we kind of talked about, those of us that fell into recruiting. I mean, that is a piece of it. You know, that the work that you're doing is impacting the lives of those that you're placing, the clients, the companies, because people's, you know, any company's greatest asset is their people. So it's so rewarding. And then we kind of take that for granted. But Lisa, I love that you have those major testimonials. And just think of, yeah, just think of the impact of the people you've placed your team has worked with, but then that ripple effect of their companies, the people that they engage with, that's just, it's super powerful. I love that.
Well, thank you. And you know, although our sweet spot is the executive, I'm gonna tell you I like sometimes, and obviously I'm super proud of it, and that's rewarding. I could tell you that I was at a recruiting conference last year, and I sat at a table with a woman who's like, you're Lisa Rangel, like, yeah. She's like, you placed me as a temp, like at account pros, which was the second company I worked at, and and she wound up, and I did accounting, and it's part of what I did, was accounting and finance temporary placement. And I remembered her, and then I remembered she was like, but this is an HR thing. She's like, Yeah, I went on to get on my, get my, you know, four year degree, and I was placed in ours, like in accounting and finance, you know, clerical work and and it's I it's just like you guys always believed in me and always put me in spots I never thought I could do. And I really think that's what it's about. It's getting people to see what they can't see in themselves. And I mean, that happens at any level, and, you know, so that's why, although I don't market for college, and college has and stuff like that, like anyone entrusts us with their friends or family, it's an honor. And I get super excited when somebody learns how to do this networking thing and this branding thing early, because now they can literally benefit from it in a residual way for decades, you know, like, and it's, it's just getting people to see how to market themselves. Is, is really everything, like I've written a few times about my dad. My dad graduated high school early. He graduated high school at 16, and super smart, but was just always like, underemployed and got laid off from like a dream job in late 70s, when I was a kid and really never rebounded. You know, I talked to my mom about it one time after he had passed, he passed away in 2016 and she said he was just always afraid to interview. And I was like, and look at what I do for a living. No, but, but, you know, not being able to care. You know, they didn't have interview coaching in 1979 at least, that he was aware of, and definitely not at a blue collar level. So I think, you know, having access to these types of resources is just really, really.
Yeah, I agree. And I thought, actually, love the term underemployed, because that goes back to like, what your mom said. Your dad was afraid to interview like that. Fear of of sometimes a paycheck is just a paycheck, and we're all trying to make ends meet, you know, just that kind of thing. But that, how do you have somebody? And what you said is, what you and your team are trying to do is as help people, you know, believe in them, even when they don't believe in themselves, right? And don't get me wrong, like,
Lisa 34:16
Oh, love working for the post office. Like, there's nothing wrong. You need the job by man, yeah, he was just really unhappy, yes, well, yeah. So here, if you're unhappy, how can you change that for yourself? And people don't know how to do that, and they certainly didn't have those resources back then. So yeah, yeah, yeah, I like to think that we can, we can help people, yeah, absolutely in a miserable job,
Dina Simon 34:38
Right? Yeah, yeah. Miserable jobs are no fun. Yeah, as just as we all said, we we spend too much time at work, and you spend that's how we started it, right? Yes, exactly, exactly, well, and then legacies. Legacies, to us is, you know what we're doing today. It's not just the things that we leave behind and you there's so much that we talked about, as far as, like your children and the cool legacies that that you're that you are living, you know, they're living out your legacies as well, both you and your husband and the things that they're doing, but also the testimonials, the things we've talked about, you know, just all those cool things. Is there anything else that comes to mind from a legacy perspective that you would want to share?
Lisa 35:17
You know, I think just that story about the woman I met, you know, like just knowing that somehow, you know, somebody believed, you know. And that is, you know, not that she's having a great day every day, probably, but you know, she's she knows that at some point somebody believes. And I just think that's really important. And, you know, and I hear that a lot from from clients, you know, we heard it. Somebody recently went through a very tough separation from a job. And, you know, she came so it's not, not even sure she was ever going to be able to work again, and, and, and not only is she, it's better. And it was not as long as it even needed to take. Like it was a relatively short time for what it was. And, I mean, she did the work, you know, like, we're not doing the work for people. They still have to do the work, but getting them in the mindset where they feel they can do the work is really, that's, that's really key, you know,
Yeah, John, we've talked a few times with people, but, and I use the word transition, so when you're forced in those types of transitions, so much of your identity is tied to your job and your worth and all of that. So when there is something that happens, yeah, there's, I'm sure, a lot of coaching and helping people pick themselves up and be reminded of the amazing contributions that they've made, and where there's other opportunities out there,
Dina Simon 36:40
and realizing that this is something they for, career continuity, income continuity, that you really have to, you can't put it all in one job. Getting a job is a skill set and having they don't teach that in school. They really don't, you know, because even college career centers, I'll have people that come to me like their first job out of school, they got picked by the campus recruiting team that came and, you know, four years later, now they find themselves looking for a job, and they're like, Well, you know, campus recruiting ain't coming anymore. So what do I do? They don't know how to look for a job outside of campus recruiting, and so teaching people how to do a job search outside of a recruiter calling them, outside of posting to job postings, is a legitimate skill set that helps someone have income continuity and that, like we were, it was, I forget. Tom Peters, You Inc, right, I maybe have the the author, wrong, but that whole concept decades ago, of You Inc, like we're own little business, and yes, you know, we can't just rely on one client, aka the employer. You have to have some things lined up, or maybe a second gig or something, but you always have to make sure that you're taken care of, so you have income coming, income continuously. That's certainly one thing I try to instill in people
I love that I forgot about that. So the You Inc, is to have, like, your board of directors, right? Like the people. Isn't that? What that is like, Hey, you are,
You, yourself as a business. Even if you're working for an employer, it's like, yeah, income that's coming into your household is a business, yeah, you know. And you have to maintain that, you know. And talking to people, keeping things primed, you know, never assuming it can't happen to you, not in any fatalistic kind of wound way, but just in a humble we're all, you know, we all put our pants on and go to work, kind of play like just, can happen to anybody, no matter, even if we had a good ride for a while, you know, Yep, good.
Anything else that you would want our podcast listeners to know about you?
Lisa 38:38
I think we're, I think we're good.
Dina Simon 38:40
We did good, yeah,
yeah, addicted to coffee. But other than little things like that, all good, yes.
And you, I know that just because I do follow you. So I mean, you love to travel, and you've got a great network of people around you as well. I see.
Lisa 38:54
yeah, no, I'm blessed. My team's great. My family's great. You know, our clients are amazing. You know, Cornell has been very good to me, and I try to be very good to it. You know, I'm grateful, blessed.
Dina Simon 39:07
Nice. Well, we sure appreciate you sharing your wisdom and your story, and we will make sure people know how to get in touch with you and stuff, through the show notes and everything. But just an honor to stay connected. It's been years since we first got connected, but just super excited for everything that you've been able to build. I mean, we've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs on the podcast, and it's hard work.
It is, I love it, but it is, as you know.
Unknown Speaker 39:35
Lisa was great meeting you. Yeah, same,
Speaker 1 39:37
same, John, super excited. Thank you so much. It's really been great.
Dina Simon 39:42
I would like to thank my old friend Lisa Rangel for joining us on the podcast. She is the founder and CEO of ChameleonResumes.com and she and her team work with professionals that are in that transition as we talked about and I'll make sure that you know how to get in touch with her in Show Notes. And we'll have to keep track of her husband and son and the fantastic restaurants that they are at, and stay posted on their fun careers and what they have ahead of them. So Lisa, thank you so much for joining. It was so much fun. And John, my father in law, as always, I thank you for being my cohost, and the podcast is proud member of the C suite radio and until we talk again.