Reframing, Branding, and Staying Ready for What’s Next with Lisa Rangel

---

Episodes You Might Also Like

Description

Reframing isn’t just for resumes, it’s a core skill if you want a career (and personal brand) that’s built to last. Whether you're navigating a career transition or making sure you’re ready for unexpected opportunities, the key is staying proactive long before you need to.

Lisa Rangel, CEO of Chameleon Resumes, has helped clients in more than 88 countries future-proof their careers and land fulfilling, high-paying roles. With her META Job Landing System, Lisa combines resume writing, brand management, and career strategy to help executives show up as their best professional selves, before the market demands it.

In this episode of Branding Room Only, Paula Edgar and Lisa dive into how to manage your personal brand like a boss (even if you have a boss), why experience alone won’t open the right doors, and why AI can’t replace the human side of personal branding. Lisa also shares practical advice for executives stuck in the “I can sit here for a while” trap and what it really takes to stay ready for what’s next.

Chapters

1:14 – Lisa’s definition of personal brand, her three-word self-description, plus a hype song and a favorite Thomas Paine quote

7:08 – How Lisa’s childhood and family background shaped her career philosophy

10:41 – Lisa’s shift from recruiting to launching Chameleon Resumes

15:50 – Why “years of experience” won’t save you — and what real job security looks like today

20:16 – Lisa’s take on AI, personal branding, and why human judgment still matters

24:58 – The power of proactive career management and a daily practice to stay ready

30:22 – The META Job Landing System: How Lisa’s four-part framework helps clients land the right roles

36:20 – How branding yourself changes when you’re the boss vs. when you report to one

41:48 – Common mistakes professionals make on LinkedIn, in interviews, and in brand positioning

48:50 – Practical advice for executives stuck in a role that’s no longer a fit

53:30 – Lisa’s best career advice, what she’ll never compromise on, and the magic she brings to every client experience

Connect With Lisa Rangel

Lisa Rangel is the Founder and Managing Director of Chameleon Resumes, the premier executive resume writing and job landing consulting firm named a Forbes Top 100 Career Website. She is a LinkedIn Profile and Executive Resume Writer, Job Landing Consultant, former 13-year Recruiter, and a former paid moderator for LinkedIn’s Premium Groups. She has been featured in Fortune, Inc., CNN Business, Fast Company, Business Insider, Forbes, LinkedIn, CNBC, Time Money, BBC, Newsweek, Crain's New York, Chicago Tribune, eFinancialCareers, CIO Magazine, Monster, US News & World Report, Good Morning America, Fox Business News, New York Post, and other reputable media outlets. Her firm Chameleon Resumes writes high-caliber career marketing documents for senior-level job seekers that meet the needs of prospective employers so they land 6- and 7-figure job interviews faster. 

Chameleon Resumes | Executive Career Chats | LinkedIn

Mentioned In Reframing, Branding, and Staying Ready for What’s Next with Lisa Rangel

Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty and other books by Harvey Mackay

Curated Resources from Paula

2025 Intention and Goal Setting Webinar

Sign up for Paula’s Upcoming Webinars

Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer

Subscribe to The Branding Room Only on YouTube

Call to Action

Follow & Review: Help others find the podcast. Subscribe and leave a quick review.

Want more branding insights? Join Paula’s newsletter for expert tips and exclusive content! Subscribe Here

Sponsor for this episode

This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.

PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level.

Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change.

To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.

Transcript

Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show. Hi everyone, it's Paula Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only, where we talk to professionals about how they have built their brands and their advice for us on how we should build our brands as well. Today, I'm very excited for my guest, Lisa Rangel. Let me tell you about her. Lisa is the founder and CEO of ChameleonResumes.com, the premier executive resume-writing and job-landing consulting firm. Lisa's mission in life is to continue to make the world a happier place with one fulfilling, well-paying job change at a time using her four-step META Job Landing System. She has successful clients in 88-plus countries and has been featured or quoted in over 200 publications. Lisa is a badass, and I'm excited to have this conversation. Lisa, welcome to the Branding Room. Lisa Rangel: Well, thank you so much. I'm honored and thrilled to be here. Paula Edgar: I'm excited for this. Lisa Rangel: Me too. Me too. Paula Edgar: Tell me, I ask everybody this, what does a personal brand mean to you? How would you define it? Lisa Rangel: I love that question. I was probably a slow believer over the years of what a true personal brand is because I truly believe it's just what you're known for, what you do in the world. I don't think it should be anything that's contrived or even on some level self-driven because, I think that we can label ourselves in very superfluous ways that don't necessarily mean anything to anyone. Or it might mean something to us, but it's not relevant to what we're doing in the world or the impact we're making in the world. But if you really look at the impact you're making in the world, that's essentially your brand—what people know you to be, what they know to come to you for. And doing that self-reflection outward, I think, is really where most people's personal brands lie. Paula Edgar: Absolutely. Understood. I agree with you. I love thinking about it in terms of your impact. I think that, and everybody who's listening knows that I think this, that it's a little bit of a hand-holding between what you say and what they say, and what actually happens. Lisa Rangel: Somewhere in the middle is the truth. Paula Edgar: Exactly, it's the Venn diagram of it all. Tell me about your Venn diagram. How would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases? Tell me about that. Lisa Rangel: Yeah, and I did your exercise of asking people, right? Paula Edgar: Yes. Lisa Rangel: Which was great. I came up with tenacious, straight-talking, and reframer. Paula Edgar: Oh. So let me tell you what I love about that. First of all, anybody who gets within two minutes of you knows you're straight-talking so there’s that. Lisa Rangel: All right, well, thank you, and I'm sorry. Paula Edgar: It's why I liked you immediately. Lisa Rangel: That's awesome. Paula Edgar: But I think that the reframer is a really great one because it is to the point of, I'm sure that given what you do—and we're going to get into it in a minute—that sometimes people kind of come to you with the ah, and it's like, uh-uh, let's figure this out. Reframing is really powerful. I'm actually going to sit with that—it's a really great word. I love it. I love it, and it aligns with what you do. Okay. Tell me, do you have a favorite quote or a motto? Lisa Rangel: You know, one of my favorite quotes—I literally have it as my high school quote in my yearbook—is "When all other rights are taken away, the right to rebel is made perfect." It's Thomas Paine. It's literally under my name in my yearbook with my curly hair because it was permed. It still rings true today. Paula Edgar: Oh, that resonates big time. Lisa Rangel: I think it happens—I think it's relevant with people at work, to kind of bring it back to a digestible scale. If you're really feeling not represented at work, or you're not being heard at work, or you're not being recognized at work, then it's time to go. I don't mean rebel as in burn the building down, but you gotta go do the things to take care of you. I think that's just an underlying theme of my life as well as what I do for people and what my team and I do for people. Paula Edgar: Yeah, I'm thinking about that rebellion piece as almost like it feels rebellious to even consider yourself sometimes—to consider that where you are or what your experience is is not optimal and that you can go and that you can be someplace else. I think that that is counter to so many places that tell you to comply and to be glad for X or Y. Lisa Rangel: Right. Yeah, so many of us—I don't want to speak for everybody—but I think a lot of people can be somewhat people-pleasing, and with good intentions. If that's not reciprocated or received or given back or appreciated, to then say, "Okay, somebody doesn't like me, I can deal with that, but now I gotta go take care of myself"—that's a hard process for a lot of people. To accept that somebody is not receiving their good intentions and then go advocate for themselves, that’s a hard thing for a lot of people to do. Because we would rather be accepted where we are and make it work. Paula Edgar: Yeah, rock every boat. Lisa Rangel: Rock all the boats, get your life jacket on, let's go. Paula Edgar: You're going to rock the boat. Do you have a hype song, a song that when people are about to get full Lisa, it's playing in your head? Or if you're having a terrible day, what’s the song you play to get yourself back up? It could be the same song or a different song—what’s your hype song? Lisa Rangel: Well, I mean, in general, I'm a '70s disco girl. There are many, many choices in that genre, but I think in somewhat of a stereotypical fashion, one of my biggest consistent hype songs is Lose Yourself by Eminem. A bit of a cliché, and I'm okay with that. Paula Edgar: Yes. That's probably the number one song that my guests have said, and it’s such a good one. The two times that I ran, y’all—it was definitely like, I love the hype up of it. It was like, it was going to get you there. It is a good hype song. Lisa Rangel: Well, even the one line, "You have this one shot, one opportunity"—like, shoot your shot. I kind of do that with almost everything, which is probably somewhat of an undue pressure to put on myself on some level. But I view everything as an opportunity, and you show up professionally, do your best, and then just see where it goes, you know? Paula Edgar: Yeah, well, shout out to the prophet Eminem. Tell me about how Lisa became Lisa. Where did you grow up, and how do you think that shaped you? Lisa Rangel: I grew up in Union City, New Jersey. Went to high school in Jersey City. I come from two high-school-grad, didn’t-go-to-college parents who were government workers. In terms of my immediate family, I'm the first one and only one to go to college, and in my extended family, the first one to go away to college. I come from a family of teachers and government workers, so going to an Ivy League school was different. And going into entrepreneurship at some point, and sales was completely not in the MO of what my family expected for me. I mean, they were always incredibly supportive and believed in me, but they just never understood what the hell I was doing. And I'd get comments from my mom like, "Are you going to get a job yet?" I'm like, "Mom, I do have a job." I was in my second year of business, you know? She just wanted stability for me. But I saw the value of relationships. I saw the value of taking care of people. My mom was the secretary at the Board of Ed in the town I grew up in. Everyone loved her. When my first child was born, just to give you an idea, I got 160 presents. Paula Edgar: Oh, wow. Lisa Rangel: My second didn’t get as many. So, I saw the value of relationships and connecting and taking care of people. She just does it—she doesn’t do it for anything in return. But I saw how people take care of each other. And my dad—he was a postal worker in the end before he retired and passed away. He was super smart, graduated high school at 16, and was underemployed his whole life. It was because he was fearful of interviewing. The irony of what I do, you know? But I lived firsthand being underemployed and being frustrated by not using all your skills in some way even if they're not maxed out every day of your life, what that can do to you both mental and financial ramifications of that. So, there’s that push and pull of growing up, but I have a lot of empathy for people who don’t believe in themselves. I really try to help them bring it out because I know what it’s like when you don’t believe in yourself. Paula Edgar: Well, clearly, right? And I ask this question because there’s always a line. There’s always something to the what. But I’m sitting here thinking about lost opportunity and what that means for how you do what you do with resumes. Because you’re not coming from a place of, "I'm on Mount High." It’s more like, "I understand from both my perspective and the perspectives I’ve seen and lived with what it means when you don’t actually know how to shine a light on what you can do, and take maybe some risk and show folks what you can do." I love that. Tell me about the catalyst of starting Chameleon Resumes. What was that? Lisa Rangel: I went to the hotel school at Cornell, although I started as an engineer. I think I stayed in that school for 2.6 seconds and then transferred to the hotel school. I graduated, and my first job was working for a Four Seasons property out in San Francisco. My second job was working at a Pebble Beach property in California. My boss at Pebble Beach—I had told her I wanted to come back to New York, New Jersey, be around my family. And she just said to me out of the blue, "You would be a great recruiter." She could have told me to be a [inaudible], and I worshiped the ground she walked on. The fact that she told me to do that—strangely enough, I just came back to New York and started looking for recruiter jobs, even though I honestly didn’t even know what it was. If I’m being honest. I did get hired, and I remember just wanting to help people get jobs. I was quickly reprimanded by a very senior, battleaxe New York recruiter, "You know, companies pay us to find talent—we don’t find people jobs." And I was like, “Oh, okay,” which is really how recruiting works—third-party recruiting works. My old boss was right, I was a really good recruiter. I wound up going on to recruiting for 13 years, rose through the ranks, and ran a few different offices. I started in legal for a little bit, but I mainly did financial recruiting and went on to oversee a bunch of different disciplines before I left. The last company I worked for, our second biggest client was [inaudible] and in 2008—so we lost—and they should have laid me off in 2008, but they laid me off in March of 2009. In March of 2009, everybody needed a job. Through my time recruiting, I became really good at doing resumes because I saw that they were the catalyst for a company wanting to see my candidate. Clearly, the candidate had to be qualified, but I would do quick little fixes and get the interview because that interview would lead to them getting hired—and that’s how I made my money. I quickly learned the value of a very good resume speaking to what the client, the company, wants to see. When I was laid off in 2009, all that work I did for free as a recruiter, I just started charging. I wasn't sure—I was burnt out on recruiting. I didn’t really want to go back to it, but I was the breadwinner, so you can't just give up what you know how to do and get paid pretty well for it. But I figured I would interview and write resumes to see what happened. I wound up doing two recruiting contract roles at the same time as writing a bunch of resumes, and then I saw I could make this a business. About three years into it—I’d say the first two years I called it my "productive unemployment"—but I realized I could make it a business. I started buying systems, structuring things, creating operations, and hiring people, and it started to scale. Although my team's been with me—the team that works with clients—anywhere from seven to fifteen years, they’re amazing. I’m blessed every day to work with them and do what we do for clients. But it started off as just something I was really good at. I was just able to turn it into a business, and I’m grateful every day that I get to wake up and do this. Paula Edgar: I think that is the key. When people talk to me about, "What is entrepreneurship?"—it's taking something that you either love and/or you're good at and just finding where the monetization is. As I was listening to you, I had a couple of different thoughts. One, I want to bring out and highlight something because I think it's important. I talk about this all the time with our good friend, Sonia, which is this— Lisa Rangel: This is how we met each other. Best [inaudible] ever. Paula Edgar: Exactly. We are the club. But it's important for people to know, and there’s such a misbranding of recruiting. People think that recruiters work for individuals when, and they work for organizations who hire them to find individuals. There is still a need for connection, but you cannot call a recruiter and say, "Get me a job." Lisa Rangel: If you are the talent that that company wants, the illusion is that the recruiter is placing you into a job and finding you a job. But make no mistake—they are delivering a product to their client company that’s paying them 20% to 35% of your salary. Paula Edgar: Exactly. Important distinction, important one. But I think that people just don’t— Lisa Rangel: And not everyone gets hired that way. That’s a low probability of hire for most people. That’s why you always gotta maintain your brand and your network for the other 70% of how hires happen. Paula Edgar: Well, wonderful pivot to my next question, which is this—Lisa, you have said that you should be building your brand before you need it. What do you think are some of the steps that professionals should be doing to build a brand, even if they love their current role? Lisa Rangel: Well, you know, Sonia has a great saying too—"Be ready so you don’t have to get ready." That’s her way of putting it. It’s not an original concept, despite the phrase maybe being different. It’s that whole—what’s his name—Harvey Mackay, "Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty." That’s like a 1990s book or something like that. But it’s about being prepared. I believe that job security doesn’t rest with any one employer anymore. For a long time, the age of the gold watch and retiring has been long gone now, right? Decades. But job security still exists—it resides in each of us to be able to maintain our income. How fast can we do that and not have a gap? The only way to do that is to keep our network warm, having people abreast of what we’ve done lately. Insert your inner Janet Jackson there—"What have you done lately?"—and how is it relevant to what you’ve been doing? If your brand is based on seniority as a senior executive, that’s dangerous because none of us are qualified to do anything based on seniority. Frankly, all 50-year-olds have in common is that we have 30 years of experience, but 30 years of experience doesn’t qualify anybody for anything. Paula Edgar: Especially not anymore. Lisa Rangel: Not anymore. No. You know what? We all know people with 30 years of experience who are amazing. We know people with five years of experience who are killing it. We also know people with 30 years of experience where it’s like, "Please don’t come to work today." And we know people with five years of experience where it’s like, "How’d you even get out of bed today?" At any age, years of experience is irrelevant. What matters is the achievements, the outcome, and the impact—at any level, in any position. I mean, I mainly deal with executives, and I believe so do you, but it’s really at all levels. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Lisa Rangel: Are you coming across as an achievement-driven person? Paula Edgar: I think it’s that. And when you just mentioned longevity in a role not being determinant of you being able to move to someplace else—I think about complacency. I think about the people who are really comfortable. What I love about shakeups that happen—whether it be 2008, whether it be COVID, whether it be the government—is those shakeups shake out the people who have been mastering branding throughout the process. Because they are the ones who are easy to access their network, “Hey, this thing happened to me. Look, what do you know? Keep your ears open. Can I talk to this person?” My audience knows I'm a lawyer. I do a lot of stuff with lawyers, but I work across industries. What I found, particularly for people who are in-house, is that they get really comfortable. Like, "Oh, well, since I live here on this in-house couch, I don’t need to tell people what I’m doing, think about how I’m upskilling, or even show my value proposition in multiple ways." And it is a killer because there is no job security. Lisa Rangel: No, there isn’t. I mean, there isn’t for anyone. Even those of us in business—the way we did it 10 years ago, I mean, I could honestly say I do it completely differently today. Even though maybe from the outside it looks similar, the inner workings of the business are totally different than they were 10 years ago or even two years ago. The minute you get comfortable, it’s when you’re like, "Oh, it changes." I did a system conversion. It took almost four years. Within like three months of it, I was like, "Sure, [inaudible]." I didn’t even believe it. I was like, "Really? I can’t even get a couple quarters out of this?" It’s just a constant reinvention, which is exhausting. Which I will wholly own is ridiculous that we have to keep doing it, but we do. Paula Edgar: Yeah, we have to. I think personal branding is the epitome of both mindset. It’s always, "What’s the next thing?" It’s why my business tagline is Engage Your Hustle. What is next? What’s coming next? It just means you have to remember that it’s always iterating. I think you can sit in a little bit of the luxury of what you’ve built, but you can’t stay so comfortable that you don’t think you have to—I mean, what we’re seeing now with AI is like, "Well, holy— I had a team of 17 people who were doing that before. Now I just press the button." Again, I think this is really important in terms of how we think about what we both do. It just makes a little bit faster I think in some of the processes, but doesn’t take away because it’s still a skill set to help people see their value. It’s still a skill set to help people to promote their value. There’s never not going to be a need for that, especially because, in my opinion, so many people have deprioritized it for such a long time until they get it. Then it’s too late. It’s not too late. It’s never too late. Lisa Rangel: It’s never too late. Paula Edgar: It’s later than I would want it to be, but it’s not too late. Lisa Rangel: I mean, it’s interesting you brought up AI and ChatGPT and all that too because it’s an amazing tool. I usually get the question, "Aren’t you worried?" I’m like, "No, I’m not." Frankly, it’s made business better. When it first came out to the masses—whatever, December 2022—I wasn’t the only one who said this, but I was like, "It’s going to make great writers more efficient, good writers better, and crappy writers crappier." Of course, it's a little bit more of a salty word, but I'm trying to be respectful here. And that's what I believe, because it's like buying a resume book. Those who steal the resume out of the book aren't getting a whole lot of success with it. But those that use it as a guide and have the judgment of knowing what to apply to them, what to leave out because it doesn't apply to them, and how to create something different because they have a unique situation, you use it as inspiration or a guide, maybe—that's what it's supposed to be for. It's not a cut-and-paste. Paula Edgar: Can you just say that one more time? Lisa Rangel: It's not a cut and paste. To me, ChatGPT and AI and all these things are basically like online books that we would buy 20 years ago that showed us how to do something. Paula Edgar: Yeah, it's faster access. Lisa Rangel: It's faster access and clearly more robust access. In some places, even it gives you judgment, but that doesn't mean that judgment is right for you. Paula Edgar: Right. Lisa Rangel: More importantly, as this becomes more mainstream, everybody's doing it. Now everybody's got the same judgment. That's what I don't think people realize. You really can't farm out to non-human brains, your brain. You have to ask your people. You have to ask advisors, like you, like me. You have to ask your network for their—it's a human thing. I'm not saying it couldn't get it right every once in a while with an online brand type of thing, but it's still not going to be the best. Paula Edgar: Yeah. No, a true strong brand is authentic. It's well thought out. Lisa Rangel: It catches emotions. Paula Edgar: Exactly. When I think about some of the content that I see, even when people are relaying what they have received in person from AI, I can tell when they've done no editing of it at all. I can tell when they've used the exact same emojis. Just some things where I'm like, “Okay,” it also shows laziness. It shows a lack of innovation because even if you're using a tool that is innovative, you and how you come to it and what you bring from it can show how you are far and beyond everybody else or how you are just the same and not differentiated at all. It is important to think of a tool as a tool. It's never going to replace the thing. It'll help you, but it cannot replace a thing. I cannot say this enough that I feel—I agree with you 100%—I feel really strong in that I feel even more needed now than I did before because everybody's got a green check mark or something, and it's like, okay, please stop it. Anyway, now that we've gone off on that tangent, but I'm glad that we did. I'm glad that we did. I'm glad that we did. Talk to me about this, and I think especially now, and I think people listen to podcasts at whatever time during the year, so I don't want to assume that it'll be just now. Just in period, it's thinking about how there are always shifts that happen in society and government, et cetera, and that those shifts can cause the market to do what it does, and then there are layoffs or people leave for whatever reason. Why do you think it is important to be able to be set up to land the next thing quickly? Tell me about that. Lisa Rangel: You know, I think it's important to always be set up for either capitalizing on opportunity. It doesn't always have to be bad. It's not always anticipating calamity. It's also, there might be opportunity that shows up in your lap, but now you're not scrambling to get everything ready. You can't say in your brand that you are prepared, and then somebody calls you for an opening, and you're like, "Oh, let me get that to you in three weeks." Your actions aren't meeting your words. If you pride yourself on being ready, then that should also apply to yourself. If we've learned anything from the last five or six years, we've had to operate without a playbook. We've had more stuff happen in the last five years that was just unprecedented than in the 50 before it practically. If we've learned anything, it's that anything can change on a dime and it can change very quickly. On the flip side, as humbly as I can say this and as compassionately as I mean it, despite it coming across a little heartless, there is ethical opportunity in chaos. There is ethical opportunity in every situation that we’re faced. People who have these appearances of this upward trajectory, upwardly linear careers, believe me, they have downs, they have squiggles. The line is not this. It’s this. They are reframing what is before them looking for where they can capitalize on the opportunity to either solve the problem that exists or capitalize on the opportunity that is existing now because of it. We have to learn how to be reframers if we're going to be happy and if we’re going to stay on top of our game. There is always something to be really negative about it. Paula Edgar: Facts. Lisa Rangel: Amen. I say that without any preachy pontification like Pauliana craft. I wake up in the morning and see the negative. I'm not one of these bright and shiny, “Oh, my god, it’s the sunset, morning people,” not at all. I have to do work in the morning to get myself right-minded. I'm grateful for opportunities that I have before me in the day. I'm grateful that I have a gift that allows me to help people see what they can't see. I'm grateful for the people that help me see what I can't see. I do reach out for help when I need it. But we have to always look to see where the opportunity lies to help. There's no shame in making money with that as long as it is adequately done and delivered upon accordingly. There's no shame in that, and always overdeliver. I think that that's—I kind of even forgot the question, I'm sorry. Paula Edgar: No, I mean, you answered it plus, which I love. I think you made a lot of good points. I just want to side note on this—thank you for sharing that you have to have a gratitude practice to get to where you need to work the day. Because I do think that so many people are like, "Well, you can talk over here about this because you're always this way," or "You have the success." Sometimes you've got to build yourself up. I think that muscle is probably the most important muscle, especially as we are in uncertainty. And to your point about chaos—yes, there is something we can find that we do not like. As soon as we turn our phones on. But to be able to say, "Guess what? I can grab the day," and figuring out that lens to go do so is such a wonderful skill. But it is a practice, and I love it. Lisa Rangel: It is a practice, and it is a choice. Paula Edgar: Yes, yeah, I love that. Lisa Rangel: It doesn't come without guilt sometimes, because I can't say that—I know it's a privilege to be able to block certain things out and stay focused. I know that’s absolutely 100% a privilege, but I've come to the conclusion, at least in the last year, year and a half, two years, that if I stick to what I know how to do, it's putting the best, most qualified people in roles, and they're all different kinds of people. I can just stay focused and do what I gotta do. All the other stuff, the worrying—and not that I don't worry, but I worry a lot less than I used to—and any of the thinking I do about the world, it's not solving anything. It's not helping anything, and it's hours and hours of time that I'm not going to get back. I've tried to just stay focused and reframe it and look for where I can be the helper and where the opportunity is. Paula Edgar: Okay, well, speaking about helping an opportunity, can you tell us about the four-step META job landing system and how to help people get fulfilling and well-paying roles? Lisa Rangel: I love that question. So, when I started the business—I mean, it's called Chameleon Resumes because I focused just on resumes. And if people have asked me, "You do so much more, why don't you change the name?" I don't change the name on purpose because it's really what most people think they need to land a job, and then we educate them on, they usually need a lot more. The META Job Landing System evolved from doing all the everything else. We not only help with the resume, but the LinkedIn profile now over the years is just as important. Some would even argue more important than the resume in many cases. Cover letters, thank-you notes, executive bios, board resumes—we do all, that's the M, the marketing documents. The E is Effective job landing tactic training. I came to learn after the first year or two in business that people would come to me for the resume, and then I would see their profile was terrible. I was like, "Damn it, now I gotta do that profile." And then they'd give them both, and then they didn't know what to do with it. Now I'm going to show them what to do with it, and that's the Job Landing Tactic training. Then they'd show up on the interview, and I'd realize, "Oh my God, they don't know how to do an interview. I gotta prep them on the interview." That's our Three-step interview prep process, the T of META. Then the last piece is A, is advanced salary negotiation work that we do, where we help them negotiate the package for everything on up to what—we're still lawyers, we're not employment lawyers. If it needs that kind of work, we make referrals, but we can help with everything else. That's the four steps, and it's evolved. We've been doing it this way now for probably, I think I named it about five, six years ago, and we've been doing those four steps, just poorly named, for probably the last 13 out of the 17 years I've been in business. But it evolved because I saw what people needed, and then I was like, “Well, let me make sure,” because then I never want somebody to buy one piece when they really need everything. Because that one piece, they're never going to be happy because they needed everything. So I don't ever want to oversell. I never want to undersell because underselling just to meet someone's budget doesn't help them either. I'd rather them buy zero. We see that most people need all of it, and we support all of it. Paula Edgar: I mean, I love it because, to your point, it's you saw something, you added, you saw something, you added. It's what you just mentioned, and it's true. I think hearing about this, the value proposition of being able to have a one-stop shop to support the whole process. I'm sure—I just kind of got a little tingle because I can imagine the notes at the end, like, "Lisa, I got this role, and I'm a billionaire. Remember when I only had a crayon resume?" Lisa Rangel: Oh my God, crayon resume, that's awesome. One thing I'm very proud of is we have monthly LinkedIn recommendations from clients who've invested in our services, going back almost 11 years. Every month, and I'm super proud of it. You'll see my team's name laced all within them. It's definitely not a me thing. It's a team thing. I'm super proud of it because people ask me about our success record, and it's a question I don't like because I'm not executing the search. I can't take full credit for those recommendations, to be honest. One, my team's helping, but two, more importantly, I can coach, and you know this, and I can write, but if somebody does not execute what they're supposed to do, there's no success story. The success record really lies with each person. It's like financial results—past practice doesn't mean future performance and all that stuff. It really depends on the person. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Lisa Rangel: That's part of their personal brand. They have to deliver on what they say they're going to deliver on from their part as well. It's a partnership. I don't know what made me say that, but yeah. Paula Edgar: No, I love that you did say it because I think that my answer, from a branding perspective, you have a 100% success record because you got everybody prepared, and then they do what they need to do. Lisa Rangel: 100%. Make sure you're successfully prepared. Paula Edgar: Exactly. I mean, and that's truly it. It's also such an important part of this because you are not doing it for them. I think, for me, the challenge when I was coaching particularly was people would be like, "Hey, here's this problem," and I'd be like, "All right, well, here's my foot in your back to make sure you get it done. And here's all the resources that you needed." And it'd be like, "Okay, well, we're just sitting here, and your foot's in my back, but you're not moving." I'm like, "Well, then this is not working for you. You need to find somebody who's going to get you moving because I can tell you all the brilliance, and I can help you with all the brilliant things, but you have to be the person who does the thing." And the hardest part about COVID and all the challenges that people experience—and it seems like more and more every day—is that I think it makes people, it's harder to feel excited, engaged, and energetic, even if you have every single resource piled up in front of you to actually do the thing. I tell people all the time, do something little, something very small, even if it's just sending an email to somebody, because that then builds on itself. You don't have to do everything at one time. Even if you have it all prepared, do something little to plug on yourself a little bit, and that helps to go because— Lisa Rangel: And pick the familiar people who are going to be nice to you. Start with people who love you, and then don't make your first person be someone who has no idea who you are and it's the dream place you want to work. Don't set yourself up for that. It's 100% agreement. You gotta start. You gotta give yourself small wins to get the big wins, you know? Paula Edgar: Yes, exactly that. So, we are both entrepreneurs, and in terms of the work that you do, you work with folks who are executives, and I'm sure in the entrepreneurial space, but also in different sectors as well. What do you think are the biggest differences between branding yourself if you are your own boss versus branding yourself if you have to report up to as an executive? Lisa Rangel: You know, there are some differences, but there aren't, right? Because as entrepreneurs, our bosses are clients and prospective clients. We can't piss people off. There’s taking a stand and owning your brand, and then there's just outright pissing people off. You can't do that. It’s the same thing with having a boss. I think everyone has to live within certain decorum and guidelines. We've all seen—whether it's an entrepreneur, a freelancer, or an employee—someone on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, where we're like, "That's a little too far." So, I don't think there's a lot that's different. I think you have to imagine what's the worst-case scenario of anything you put out there. You have to be okay with it. If you're not, then don't do it. Paula Edgar: Right. I think the hard part for me when I think about this is that I always say I am my brand, and I am my business. They're intertwined. So, there may be some things that you see and don't love about me, and that might impact your giving me business. But for the most part, what I do, what I've delivered, and how I show up is aligned with what I want in terms of my brand. When you are working for someone else, you always have to think about the big entity. You're working to make the person above you and the person above them look good for them to be able to facilitate the success of the team through whatever your part of it is. For me, the shift is that there are more people I'm thinking about when there's a framework. Otherwise, it's me in terms of the people who work with me. But I agree with you—it's mostly similar. It's just about a perspective shift. Lisa Rangel: Yeah, it's a perspective shift. You're still looking at what the end role and result are supposed to be and how you get there. An interesting point, though—I have a lot of resume-writing friends who refer us people who were entrepreneurs and want to go back to being an executive. For various reasons—both good and bad—it didn’t work out, they sold it, they tried it and didn’t like it, they want to get back to working for somebody else, they want something bigger than them—all kinds of reasons. Companies want to hire entrepreneurial-minded people. They don’t want to hire entrepreneurs. Paula Edgar: Facts. Lisa Rangel: It's my experience as a recruiter and on the side of the coin. So helping entrepreneurs market themselves in such a way that does not intimidate that prospective employer—not dumb themselves down, but you have to make yourself digestible to people. Paula Edgar: Yes, yes, yes. Lisa Rangel: Because if they feel that you are going to upstage them, not be happy with how you're being managed, you can leave because you've shown that you can work on your own, now they just gave you all the secrets. So, there's this extra burden. But you’re right. You have to be able to make your bosses look good in a corporate setting, whether as an executive, a middle manager, or a staff-level person. You always have to look like you are—I mean, nobody gets hired at a charity. Everyone’s getting hired because the person making the hire is hoping their job is going to be easier. How do you convey yourself in that way? That’s how you have to put your brand out—to make sure that they’re not upstaged, but at the same time, you’re not downplaying too much. Paula Edgar: Yeah, that by itself is probably its own podcast. Lisa Rangel: Oh yeah, that’s right. Paula Edgar: Because when I was pivoting between side gig and still having a job, I remember one of my aunts was like, "The reason why you're always uncomfortable, Paula, is because you're not supposed to have a boss." I was like, "I don’t know what you mean. I like insurance. I like to have stability, but I like it up to here." It’s just true. I do think that it’s a reframing—which I just feel like is the theme of this—of how you add you and how you’re able to shift. But I love your point about it’s not about dimming your light. It’s probably about refracting it. Lisa Rangel: Yeah. I mean, it’s the same concept with dating or making friends. You have to show up and see what is available before you start letting parts of yourself be revealed. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Lisa Rangel: Just to make sure it's a match. Yes, we want people to accept us as we are, but if we show up with, "Here’s the 15 things I am," I don’t think most people can handle that. You have to give people things in small doses and see that it’s the right place for you—from a safety standpoint, all of it. Interviewing is no different. Putting your brand out there is no different. You have to be able to stomach any of the pushback. You have to make sure you're in the right frame of mind to do it. Paula Edgar: This is a great pivot to something that I think about often. I actually talk with Sonia about this often as well, which is around mistakes you see when it comes to branding. I see a lot—or hear about a lot—when it comes to people who look great on paper or on LinkedIn, but then they show up in an interview process, and it's like... (mimics popping sound). What are some of the things that you see that can take somebody who looks great in terms of a profile that can be accessed without them being a part of it to when they actually show up to show the thing, whether that's in an interview or what are some of the mistakes that you see folks do? Lisa Rangel: I mean, some of the mistakes that I see people make—and frankly, it was probably part of the reason why it's taken me to be a slow burn as to thinking personal branding is good and the thing for us to do—is that sometimes I think people are so contrived, and they're trying to come off with something really cute. Then I'm like, that is completely subjective. More importantly, where are the goods? You came up with a great tagline, but where are the goods that support that? They're trying too hard. It’s not rooted in a real viewing of what people think they do and stand for. So, when there's a disconnect between the self-image and the external image, I think that can be a mistake. Some small mistakes that I don't think are catastrophic but make people frustrated are they focus too much on the likes and the comments. They comment only on the top voices on LinkedIn or whatever channel equivalents they're on. They're not just engaging people. I mean, in the end, I'm primarily on LinkedIn. I don't really use a lot of other things, but I view LinkedIn as one big room of people. I conduct myself accordingly. I talk to people in messaging and comments as I would talk to them in person to the best of my ability. I try not to phone it in. I don’t hit the pre-populated answers. I'll leave a short answer, type it out, and hit two exclamation points so people know I typed it out. And I'm probably overthinking it, and nobody cares. But I just think that you have to talk to people like people. We can't become a bunch of bots that are sending predetermined messages to each other and think that we're going to get something out of that. Paula Edgar: It's so true. Lisa Rangel: Comment on somebody's stuff, then reach out to them and say, "That was great. What are you up to? Would you be up for a chat?" Just talk to people like people. I think that's a mistake that some people make. They think it's some contrived, keyword-heavy thing, a magic set of keywords, a magic number of likes, posted at seven in the morning. Just stop with all the nonsense, talk to people, and help people. That sounds overly simplified, but it really isn't that much more than that. Paula Edgar: I think what I'm hearing from you is to find the authenticity in what you do and show it. I think you're right because my pet peeve—I know two people who are going to message me after they hear this because they're going to be like, "Enough already with you and this pet peeve." But I don't care. It's my podcast, and I can do it. Lisa Rangel: It’s your podcast. Paula Edgar: Exactly. So, here's my pet peeve. You should never be surprised and be searching for an answer when somebody says, "Tell me about yourself." Lisa Rangel: Yeah. Paula Edgar: If you don't know yourself, you should not be interviewing. If you don't know who you are and how you add value, you should not be talking to people because they want to know about you the same way you want to know about them. If you are there and you are like, "Hello, I'm Paula, and this is what I do," I'm like, “Oh my gosh, I just talked to a robot. That was awesome. But it was a robot.” Folks want to hear what excites you, what things you’ve read. They want to know more about you. Every time I've talked to somebody who has been like, "Oh my gosh, I thought I was doing so well in this process, and then I bombed the interview," it's because they were saying what they thought the person wanted to hear. Lisa Rangel: Yeah, instead of something authentic from here. I can't put my chest up high enough, but up here. Paula Edgar: Exactly. Lisa Rangel: Well, and that is the mistake. You said it in the best way. I kind of went on a little long-winded about it, but it's because you're trying to do what you think people want. You gotta do what you want to do. Paula Edgar: A hundred percent. Lisa Rangel: When you do what you want to do, that's the authenticity. That's where you attract your like-minded people or those who appreciate you, even if they’re not like-minded, and repel the people that are not your people. Paula Edgar: Repel—I love it. Lisa Rangel: No, in marketing, you are either attracting or repelling. It’s actually a thing. You don't want everyone. You want your people. That doesn't mean everybody thinks like you, but people appreciate what you do. You can disagree with decorum, which I know is a lost art, but repelling is part of this process with branding. Because then you're not engaging with people who are not going to get you, and you're not going to get them, and it's not going to go anywhere. Paula Edgar: Correct. You should never be looking for everybody to be your person or everybody to like you because if that's the case, then somebody is being unauthentic. Everybody's not for it. That's why we have finding your unique value proposition, finding your community, and engaging. It can expand, but you should never want to be everywhere. Lisa Rangel: Which is another mistake—not being specific in your brand. When people try to be all things to everyone because they don’t want to alienate, “What if that’s an opportunity? I don’t want to close it off.” I get the logic behind being broad, but when you’re broad, you appeal to no one. When you’re specific, you appeal to the people that are interested in what you’re being specific about. But what also happens is people see strength in your specificity, and they'll try to apply your strength to what they have available, even if it’s not necessarily in alignment. But when you are broad, they don’t want any of that wishy-washy crap, so they don’t ask you anything. And you're also then up against other people who are being specific. You're always going to look less. Paula Edgar: Yes. Lisa Rangel: So, take the stand and take a risk. It’s going to most likely always pay off because even if it doesn’t go well, there’ll be a lesson. That is always worth it. That’ll help you pick the lane you should be in. Paula Edgar: Right. It'll help people define with you, not for you, with you. Lisa Rangel: Yeah. Paula Edgar: The way you can specify when it didn’t work, you can understand from the feedback, “Oh, maybe it’s not this. I need to iterate a little bit more here.” So, I already knew I was like, “I can talk to Lisa for days,” but I wanted to try to get-- Lisa Rangel: I can talk to you for hours. You're awesome. Paula Edgar: I want to ask you this because I want this to really be helpful for somebody who might be sitting there. So, if there’s an executive who is sitting out there who does not like their role, that role is not it for them, but they like it enough that they can sit for a while—what are some of the things that they should be doing right now? Lisa Rangel: First thing, if you're currently working in a job that you're not happy with, I would say take a minute and have gratitude for it. Because they are going to essentially pay you while you look for a job. You can also be looking for a job without a job, and that's harder. I would come from a place of gratitude because that will help you not feel like you are jumping ship but going to your next opportunity. You don’t want to go from the frying pan into the fire. If you are ungrateful or angry all the time, you're going to just look at the next thing as an escape versus where you're going to. You need to be able to look at where you're going to in an objective way to make sure it’s the right thing. Paula Edgar: Love that. Lisa Rangel: I would start with that. Then secondly, get your documents ready based on what you want to do next. What I find at the executive level is we've done a lot of things, and we're all very good at a lot of things, but there's probably a list of things that, even though we're great at them and might have even a great story about them, we probably never want to do again. Have your documents not be this kitchen sink of everything you've ever done, because you're going to get calls then for the thing you don’t want to do anymore because [inaudible], and you're good at it, so people are going to want you to keep doing it. When people say, "I'm getting these job calls, but they're not the right job," I’m like, "Well, you got that on bullet number two. Of course, they’re going to call you for it." You really need to whittle down what you want to continue doing and have that be your marketing document. Because again, a resume, profile, and bio—these are marketing documents. They're not obituaries of everything you've ever done in your life. Zero in on what you want to continue doing, build that brand around that, and then start talking to people. Look at target companies, professional associations, college alumni, corporate alumni, and conferences that you could travel to that are local, attend virtually. Follow people and hashtags, reach out to them afterward even if you didn’t get to go. People say to me, "I don’t have the budget to travel. My company’s not paying for it." But I’m like, "Look for how you can do it." We have Zoom. We can have conference calls with people in New Zealand. LinkedIn is the best thing that has ever happened to all of us about being able to reach out to people from our desks, in our homes, or at work. We can reach almost anybody nowadays. If you aren’t reaching out to enough people or you feel like you don’t have people helping you, I hate to say it, but you haven’t done the work—because it’s all there. It’s all there to be tapped. You might need some help doing it, but it’s all there to be tapped, and you just have to look at how it can happen versus the 50 ways it can’t happen because there’s always 50 ways it won’t work. Paula Edgar: That’s such a smart perspective, and I want to double-click on something. If you don’t have the money or you’re busy and you can’t go to a conference or some other opportunity where you know that would be helpful to you, what I love about hashtags or even following the organization is that you see who the speakers were, you see some of the topics. Sometimes you can see recaps of what happened. Let me tell you a quick story. Somebody who just had a baby a couple of weeks ago reached out to me and said, "I saw you were going to be at a conference. I couldn’t attend because I had a baby. Attached is a picture of the baby." I was like, all right. Then they said, "Would you please mind sending me any handouts that you had for the conference?" I was like, "100%." Lisa Rangel: You’re going to [inaudible] your everything. Paula Edgar: Right. And I’m sitting here reflecting on it. It’s a great brand builder. It’s a hustle move. It is about not saying no to yourself. It’s saying, "Where’s my yes? Where’s the yes in this?" Lisa Rangel: Right. Looking for how it can work. Paula Edgar: I love that. Lisa Rangel: Reframing it, right? She could have easily said, "I had a baby, there's no way I'm going to a conference. I'm not even going to be proud. I'll just deal with it when I'm done." That would have been like, "Hell yeah, you deserve the rest," right? Props for that. It would be okay. But instead, she looked at where she could make it happen. Paula Edgar: I love that. like your baby too, I was like, "Oh my gosh." Lisa Rangel: Yeah, you got the information and a cute baby. Paula Edgar: Exactly, exactly. All right, so as we're going to end, I want to ask you a few questions. One is this—look, we've given a lot of advice during this conversation, but is there one piece of advice that you would want to give folks, thinking about the best piece of career advice or branding advice that you've ever received? Lisa Rangel: A mantra I've always lived by since my restaurant and hotel days, before I even recruited, was: "Do the job you want, then you get it." Don't wait to be bestowed the job. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Lisa Rangel: Because people need to see that you trained people, you came up with ideas, you had a strategy, you reduced costs before they give you the job that's responsible for training people, coming up with a strategy, and reducing costs. Look the part you want, do the job you want, then you get it. Paula Edgar: Yep. Don't just do the minimum. You'll never get anywhere by just doing the minimum. Welcome to my TED Talk to my kids every day. Just the minimum is not it. Lisa Rangel: And then tell people about it. You can't depend on people advocating for you. If you're not advocating for yourself, you can't be mad if somebody else doesn't do it. Paula Edgar: Preach, strategic self-promotion. All right, everybody on my podcast answers these two questions. Lisa, what is something that you will never compromise on when it comes to your brand? Lisa Rangel: Oh, just—I mean, there's so many traits, right? Like trust. Integrity, I have to be able to sleep at night. Paula Edgar: Yeah. Lisa Rangel: I won't sell things that I don't feel right about. I won't take on clients I can't help. I say what I can't do. I don’t know, I think it’s just integrity. I think many other things, like trust and honesty, kind of get wrapped up into that. You can say honesty, trust, or whatever, but I guess I gotta sleep at night. Paula Edgar: Yeah, I love that. Lisa Rangel: I don’t want it eating at me. I just want to be able to sleep at night. Paula Edgar: Yeah. What is your magic? Branding Room Only is a play on the term standing room only because I'm clever. Lisa Rangel: You are. Paula Edgar: What is something that people would be in a room with no seats—standing room only—to experience about you? Lisa Rangel: Getting people to see possibilities. I know that’s what I love to do. Honestly, I get people who are angry every once in a while because when you tell people what's possible and they don't believe in themselves, it's better to be angry at someone like me telling them what's possible than to actually try to live it. I would say I try to help people see what's possible. Paula Edgar: Lisa, I knew that our conversation was going to go by too quickly, and you will have an open invitation to come and talk to me whenever you want. Lisa Rangel: Same. Paula Edgar: About whatever you want. Exactly, exactly. I'm excited for all of our conversations. Tell folks how they can find out more about you and your work. Lisa Rangel: You can find me on LinkedIn—feel free to follow, reach out. ChameleonResumes.com—I have free tools, tons of free videos that are for free, templates, and all that type of stuff. I hold a monthly executive career chat at ExecutiveCareerChat.com, of which Paula's going to be a guest. That’s probably the best way to get me. Paula Edgar: Fantastic. Everybody, send this to that friend who you know doesn’t like their job, or send it to the other friend who you know could do better thinking about it and maximizing their resume and bio. Send it to all the folks who need to hear that they can be proud of and amplify who they are and how they add value to get that next opportunity. I will see you when I see you. Stand by your brand. Bye, y’all.