Many Westchester families are familiar with the wide range of services available to help students prepare for college admission: private tutors, SAT prep centers, and college advisers. Yet, they might not be aware of one that could perfectly bookend those resources after the student earns a degree: a training and coaching service that supports graduates (and upperclassmen) in taking necessary steps to secure a job and start a career.
As executive recruiters and corporate trainers, Nancy Thomas and Nadine Varca Bilotta coached hundreds of employees during their careers; when they recognized a need that was not being addressed, they founded CompleteCandidate in 2015. Its mission is to thoroughly prepare grads for the job search process while fostering their confidence to succeed in a competitive market. Based in Rye, the service guides young adults through the postgraduate phase and assists them, step-by-step, with a strategy for career development.
“If you are in your 20s, in college, a recent grad, or maybe you took the worst, first job and you stayed there three years — this is really getting the foundation of your career started so you can have a happy life,” says Thomas. “A lot of times, kids will take any job, just to get a job,” adds Varca Bilotta. “[Working with us] has made such a difference in their success and in their lives.”
“This is really getting the foundation of your career started so you can have a happy life.”
–Nancy Thomas Cofounder of CompleteCandidate
For young people who might have “lived in the basement or bonus room” for the past year and perhaps feel dejected about the process, coaching can lead to their confidence being restored as they become wholistically prepared as viable and desirable candidates for hire, adds Thomas.
The duo will do a behavioral assessment, craft a resume with key phrasing, repackage a LinkedIn profile, provide one-on-one interview preparation, offer guidance on proper cover letters, text and phone correspondence, and create a marketing campaign around a grad’s candidacy.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70.2% of 20–29-year-olds who received a bachelor’s degree in 2023 were employed. Thus, with a self-reported 98% success rate after helping 1,700 clients, the pair appear to be effectively fulfilling a need, as jobseekers turn to them amid a landscape that can seem impersonal and frustrating.
Rye resident Didi DeBease Lorono, a teacher and mother of two young-adult sons, discovered CompleteCandidate on a local community social-media page. “I noticed a mom inquiring about her son, who graduated college with a degree but needed some direction on where to go and how to find a field that he was best suited for,” Lorono says. “I set up an appointment with Nadine and Nancy after realizing I wasn’t the only one in this position.” She reached out, thinking the service would be of great use to her sons, who, coming out of college in the COVID era, were struggling to land “career positions,” she says.
The fee begins at $6,000 and applies to those within a year of graduation (and for college sophomores or juniors or who want early guidance, including through internships).
“My son worked with Nancy and Nadine for around nine or 10 weeks together; they can assess a client’s strengths — someone may think they want to do A, B, C, and [the consultants] see that the person is really qualified for D, E, F — and then they guide them in that direction,” Lorono adds.
Thomas believes their combined experience in the recruiting and employment service industries is beneficial to clients. “We are on the pulse of how people are hiring, how they are screening resumes, what they are looking for; we know that big banks are screening against ChatGPT because they don’t want to hire lazy kids who are formulating a cover letter by a computerized app,” she explains. “We prepare our clients ad nauseum and create their confidence, so they become consistent in articulating their value to a potential employer.”
For both of Lorono’s sons, the collaboration paid off. One was hired for a position at a top biotechnology company and the other at a commercial real estate firm. Their mother is very proud. “The bottom line is that [Nadine and Nancy] are guiding people on how to be advocates for themselves and take ownership of it; these are the tools to succeed,” she says.
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