How to Write Better Resumes - Brief Article

Take it from career guru Gary Joseph Grappo--you don't have to be closetted to achieve success in the business world

Gary Joseph Grappo knows a thing or two about job hunting. Before penning such popular self-help titles as How to Write Better Resumes and Start Your Own Business in Thirty Days, the 45-year-old Florida-based author sold computers, managed a church-funded nursing home, and toiled in a variety of positions for the now-defunct PeoplExpress Airlines.

His route to the writing life started in 1988 when, realizing he had a knack for reinventing himself, he wrote down what he'd learned in Get the Job You Want in Thirty Days. "My lover at the time thought I was crazy," says Grappo. "He said it would never sell and that it was a waste of time."

Undaunted, Grappo sent out 400 letters to book agents. Twenty asked to see the manuscript. Three wanted to try to sell it. "I became a best-selling author almost overnight," says the scribe. Since then, Grappo says, his message has reached "between 50 million and 100 million people," thanks to book sales, appearances on television and radio, and participation at conferences and job fairs coast to coast.

Five books later, the job guru is launching his latest guidebook, Career ReExplosion: Changing Your Career Can Change Your Life (Berkley, $12). While Grappo knows he'll be heard in the business world, he hopes the book will reach gay and lesbian audiences as well. "I have a lot to offer the gay community," says Grappo, who, despite being out personally and professionally for more than two decades, has never been profiled in the queer press. "I'd like to write, speak, and be a role model, especially for the new generation entering the workforce. I don't want them to experience the gay glass ceiling. They don't have to. I can tell them how to succeed."

Grappo says part of that success includes daring to be true to yourself at work and at home, regardless of parental or societal pressures. "You've got to start making decisions now about your life," he stresses. "Because when you turn 50, 60, whatever, and you say, `OK, thank God, my parents are dead, now I can do what I want,' it'll be hard to turn around at that point and recapture your dream."

Vaillancourt is a freelance entertainment writer based in New York City.

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