Posted: Tue., Mar. 18, 2008, 5:14pm PT

Former hires get a bump from Trump

These 'Apprentice' gurus went wild with careers

By Christine Champagne

Clockwise from top left: Randal Pinkett, Bill Rancic, Carolyn Kepcher and Kendra Todd.
'The Apprentice': 100th Episode Photo Gallery

As these former hires show, a bump from Trump can lead to a lucrative media career full of websites and self-help books.

Carolyn Kepcher
Kepcher was hired -- for real -- by Trump to run his golf course, 10 years before "The Apprentice" premiered. On the show, she was Trump's icy boardroom sidekick before she herself was canned -- for real -- in 2006 for reportedly getting carried away with the TV gig. She's now readying her own Web biz, a social networking site for working moms. She also writes an advice column for the N.Y. Daily News.

Bill Rancic
Perhaps nobody parlayed getting "hired" by Trump better than online-cigar-business impresario Rancic. The season one champ and lecture-circuit fixture now makes regular appearances on the "Rachael Ray" show as the eponymous host's "financial buddy," and he just followed up his bestselling "You're Hired" tome with the kiddie-targeted finance guide "Beyond the Lemonade Stand."

Kendra Todd
The first female winner on "The Apprentice," Todd hosts "My House Is Worth What?" on HGTV and is a money expert on "The Montel Williams Show." She also runs real estate firm the Kendra Todd Group, and she just launched the financial advice website RichIsSexy.com. Of course, she also wrote a book -- "Risk & Grow Rich: How to Make Millions in Real Estate."

Randal Pinkett
The season four titleholder, who famously refused to share his crown with Rebecca Jarvis -- "This is 'The Apprentice,' not the 'Apprenti,'" he cleverly noted -- runs BCT Partners, a management, technology and policy consulting firm. He's also writing a book titled "Black Faces in White Places: 10 Steps for African-Americans to Redefine the Game."