My mission is to help executives and C-Suite leaders become more visible.

I'm a nationally recognized voice in executive resumes, LinkedIn, career, and job search strategy for workers who are 50 and over, cited as an industry expert by Fast Company, Forbes, CNBC, Business Insider, CBS News, Yahoo Finance, LinkedIn News, and FlexJobs. 

As a former engineer and senior analyst for Fortune 500 leaders Procter & Gamble and FedEx, I bring a data-driven approach to today’s most pressing market challenges. Since launching my business in 2006, I’ve partnered with major media outlets and job search platforms including The Motley Fool and Glassdoor to deliver actionable insights to broad audiences. 

Today, I've built an engaged LinkedIn following of 90,000+ with 40+ million views on my content since 2023. I’m known as a trusted advisor on age inclusion, with a dual mission: to help executives position themselves for their next great role and to help organizations engage and retain the 50+ workforce.

I offer:
* Executive resumes, executive bios, and LinkedIn profile upgrades
* LinkedIn strategies for small businesses and executives
* Best practices on fighting ageism, workforce trends, and job search strategies
* Presentations/webinars on age inclusion, LinkedIn, and resume best practices

Collaborations include:
* The ABplatform (advisory board member)
* Randstad RiseSmart (career coaching/outplacement)
* CEO Connection (board strategy for mid-market CEOs)
* Glassdoor (career expert/content creator)
* Carnegie Mellon Tepper MBA admissions (reader/interviewer)

Colleen Paulson

If you're making $250,000, a 5% raise is $12,500.
After taxes? Closer to $7,500.

With inflation, it won't meaningfully change your lifestyle, but it's just enough to feel "fair."

And for many companies, it’s a rounding error.

That's why the "peanut butter raises" trend is so interesting to me: moving away from merit-based increases and toward flat raises across the board.

I ran a poll on this 2 weeks ago.
1,400+ of you voted.

Only 9% expect a raise above 5%.
59% expect 0–2%.
32% expect 3–5%.

That’s not a long-term retention strategy.

As I shared with CNBC: Companies may not feel the impact of “peanut butter” raises right now - especially in a slow hiring market. But market's shift and people will remember how you treated them.

Top performers always know their market value.
The best ones won’t wait around.

When the market shifts, top talent will have options.
And they'll remember who valued them.

My advice for companies: Don't confuse a tough job market with loyalty. And don't mistake retention for satisfaction. I'm talking with so many folks who are "job hugging" but will move quickly when the right opportunity comes along.

And for executives feeling undervalued: Keep building your visibility. Keep tracking your wins. Keep your network warm.

Your value doesn’t change because the market is tight.
The right opportunity will recognize it.

Virginia Franco, NCRW, NCOPE, CEIP, MRW

Resume & LinkedIn profile writing that lands interview in record time, protects your career, keeps you visible, ready and in control. CALL/TXT: 980-288-5028. 

Does this sound familiar? 

“I'm proud of my achievements and am good at what I do, but struggle to explain it.” 

 “My career looks scattered. I don’t know how to connect the dots!”

 “I don’t have the time. I know it’s too important to do this DIY and AI isn’t cutting it.”

WHY ME?

💡 INTERVIEWS . . . FAST

My resumes have generated interviews in 60 days for 99.4% of my clients. 

💡 NO WORKSHEETS OR PREP. PERIOD.

I just need 90 minutes to discuss your career & learn your story.

💡 HIGH-TOUCH 

You will work with me exclusively and I have your back from start to finish. We work together until you are 100% satisfied.

💡 WRITING FOR TODAY’S READERS

Your documents must be ready for a digital (even mobile), skim read, while being parsed and filed correctly by AI-enabled applicant tracking software (ATS). 

💡 100% CUSTOMIZED

Everything written from scratch, unique & rich with REAL SPEAK, NEVER JARGON.

I WORK WITH:

☑ Execs & High Achievers with long, lengthy & achievement-rich careers

☑ Those who’ve never needed a resume – UNTIL NOW

☑ Military Officers transitioning to Civilian life who need their leadership accomplishments translated

☑ IT/High-Tech Professionals who lead high-dollar, complex initiatives

☑ Industry & Career Changers

THE PROCESS

Once we’ve completed our 90-minute consult, I'll write your resume in 5 days. We'll work together to edit & finalize. 

CREDENTIALS

☑ Past President, 1 of <200 to hold the NCRW certification from the National Association of Resume Writers (NRWA).

☑ 1 of 1st to earn NRWA’s NCOPE certification (Nationally Certified Online Professional Expert) - which means I understand how to write your profile for maximum visibility and searchability. 

☑ Recognized by JobScan as a Top Job Search Expert to Follow on LinkedIn.

Founder/Owner | 5X Certified Executive Career Storyteller, LinkedIn + Resume Writer

Virginia Franco

This weekend my little corner of North Carolina got pummeled with snow - a super rare event. 

We were ill prepared. 

No shovels, no blowers, not even a bag of salt to clear a path. If we’d done nothing, things would quickly get icy and precarious.
 
Improvising, we used a mop and a broom. Then, I texted a friend, who told me she found her leaf blower helpful.

Did it do a great job? Nope, but it was good enough. It kept us from breaking our necks until we could come up with a Plan B.

///

We’ve seen many lose their jobs without expecting it, and without a plan. 

In situations where inaction isn’t an option,
it’s OK to cobble something together to give
yourself a bit of breathing room while you’re figuring out a better plan. 

In job search, that might mean:

1) Quickly pulling important documents off your work computer if you’re able

2) Doing a quick review of your finances to see where you can eke out some additional cash flow 

3) Telling a person close to you what happened and do a bit of brainstorming

Here’s me yesterday morning…a pic my family has affectionately captioned, “Tell me you live in the South without telling me you live in the South.”

Executive Resume & LinkedIn Writer ● I Help Professionals Stay Visible, In Control & Market-Ready ● Resumes that Help People Land Interviews Fast ● High-Touch, No Worksheets ● AI for Research Only ● Journalist Led

When was the last time you spent more than a minute reviewing a resume? When was the last time you printed a resume out to read? 

Today, most people are in a rush, and most first skims occur online. 

By throwing in every achievement, stat and ounce of history, the outcome is a resume crammed with info that says so much, it’s virtually impossible to scan quickly. 

Some tips for getting your resume ready for its skim-reading, screen debut:

#1 Avoid dense text by keeping paragraphs at 2 to 3 lines. 

#2 In the Experience section, maintain a half-inch of white space (.6 points is my personal minimum in MS Word) between bullets. 

#3 If you have more than 5 bullets, organize them into categories or sub-headers. A long list of bullets, even if just 1 line each, makes skim-reading tough. 

#4 Draw the reader where you want their eye to go by using minor design elements, such as bold for category headers, caps or shading to make job titles or company names more prominent. 

THE GOOD NEWS? 

While resumes designed for print make for tough, large-screen and brutal small-screen reads, those written for digital skim readers are easy on the eye when printed.

/ / / 

I write high-impact Resumes & LinkedIn Profiles that protect your career, keep you visible, ready, and in control, and help you land interviews in record time. 

If you find this content useful for your job search, you can keep it in your feed by liking and commenting. 

If you might benefit from custom documents that tell your unique story and don't read like AI, learn more and schedule a chat using the link at the top of my page.

I often remind my executive clients that their resume isn’t an archive... It’s a piece of marketing collateral designed to highlight the value you bring  and not everything you’ve ever done.

My strategy for showing impact versus activity and keeping the reader's attention where it needs to be? 

- Find the through-line.
- Support it with evidence.
- Make it easy to read and digest.

There's no better way to turn your resume into a positioning tool that helps decision-makers get curious, schedule a call and begin picturing you in a role.

/ / / 

I write high-impact Resumes & LinkedIn Profiles that protect your career, keep you visible, ready, and in control, and help you land interviews in record time. 

If you find this content useful for your job search, you can keep it in your feed by liking and commenting. 

If you might benefit from custom documents that tell your unique story and don't read like AI, learn more and schedule a chat using the link at the top of my page.

Layoffs suck. They hit your wallet, your confidence and for many their mental health. Studies show community support helps. 

This is why Kelsey Worsham-Smith helped launch The Comeback Club, an online group that’s already 200–members strong. 

People are already active sharing warm referrals, comparing notes and lifting each other up.

Check it out for yourself.

Me celebrating my wedding week 🤝 me freaking the f$*% out about unemployment

Fun fact about me: the week before my wedding and three weeks before graduation, my post-MBA job opportunity fell through.

I felt like a failure, like the one thing I “needed” to do in business school hadn’t been done. At the happiest time in my life, I was battling debilitating self-doubt and anxiety.

Fast forward almost a year, and seeing the recent layoffs at companies like Amazon takes me back to how I felt in that moment. The loneliness, the fear, the discouragement.

It’s something my friend Vooha and I have spent a lot of time talking about – together and with people currently on the job market. Whether you’re laid off, fired, or lose out on an opportunity that you’re *this* close to, those feelings are all there.

It’s why we’ve just started The Comeback Club – a Slack community for people on the job market.

In our first week, we’ve had nearly 200 professionals join. Members are already:
• making warm referrals
• sharing real job leads
• supporting each other through interviews and pivots

If you’re on the job market, or supporting someone who is, join us by filling out the onboarding form below 👇

https://lnkd.in/egJCV_-V

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The Battle

Colleen Paulson

Virginia Franco

Followers

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Performance ScoreColleen Paulson's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreVirginia Franco's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Colleen Paulson

Virginia Franco

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Colleen Paulson's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreVirginia Franco's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreColleen Paulson's LinkedIn Performance