When is TheLadders’ CEO Marc Cenedella gonna give it up? This latter-day P.T. Barnum knows no shame.

On January 21, 2010 I posted How to apply for a job: The Working Resume, highlighting a job application Leonardo DaVinci sent to the Duke of Milan. (DaVinci’s letter was brought to my attention by reader Phil Hey.) I used DaVinci’s application to demonstrate the job hunting methods I’ve been teaching on Ask The Headhunter for over a decade.

A few days later, Marc Cenedella posts a strikingly similar article on his blog: Leonardo DaVinci’s Resume. It also appears in his February 15 e-mail blast. Gimme a break. It seems Cenedella is running out of ideas.

I don’t read Cenedella’s sales letters because he sends them via e-mail, so they’re useless as bird-cage liners. (I get plenty of those in my U.S. mail already.) But reader Rick brought today’s missive to my attention in a comment he posted on this blog:

Nick – I trust you are on Mark Cenedella’s email list, and have received this morning’s pep talk from him… er you… seeing as its a copy of this post. Now we know that Cenedella reads this website… Hey Mark, I want a job that pays 100k give or take!!!!

Rick

Coincidence, ripoff or merely more of Cenedella’s P.T. Barnum-esque carny-barking? Whatever it is, it’s all in keeping with the adage, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” The sales pitch promotes one thing, while the huckster delivers something else entirely.

So where’s the contradiction in Cenedella’s current e-mail? Take a look at TheLadders’ resume-writing services. Ladders will sell you a $900 update to your resume, but wait minute… the Ladders CEO is warning you that such resumes aren’t what you need…

Cenedella tells his users that they need a DaVinci-style resume that emphasizes an employer’s needs rather than their credentials:

“… that’s exactly what your resume needs to do, too. Not the laundry list / standard bio that talks about you, but the marketing piece that talks about the benefits to your future employer and how you fit into his or her needs and desires.”

Trouble is, TheLadders runs a resume-writing operation that sells you a pricey, traditional “laundry list / standard bio that talks about you.”

Cenedella goes on to explain that, “I’m a hopeless pedantic, so of course I’m going to take this opportunity to let you know what you can learn from Leonardo’s resume…”

…Uh, learn what? That Cenedella’s advice and his own resume writing service totally contradict one another? Would Leonardo DaVinci buy a resume from TheLadders?

Perhaps Rick is correct, and Cenedella lifted from this blog the idea that DaVinci’s letter to the Duke of Milan is a model resume. More important, Rick’s posting points out that there are lots of people like Rick who are paying attention. They’re talking about fraud. They’re talking about Cenedella’s goofy sales e-mails and they question his ethics. They’re taking Cenedella and TheLadders to task for charging customers for “Only $100k+ jobs” that aren’t only $100k+. They’re not suckers.

Maybe Cenedella will address that in one of his e-mails.

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3 Comments
  1. Now Cenedella is a plagiarist as well as a thief and charlatan. Nice credentials, Marc!

  2. So much for integrity!

  3. I might have considered paying to check out TheLadders.com’s job listings, until I realized that you don’t have to buy a subscription. All you have to do is type the job title and the city (which you don’t have to be a paid subscriber to see) into Google, and you’ll find the same job listed on Monster, or on the company’s own website.

    Best regards,

    Matt Krause