Why AI alone won’t help you secure a new career
Why AI alone won’t help you secure a new career
When clearly prompted, AI may be helpful for some aspects of career change: sourcing and analysing large swathes of information; job search tips; tailoring CVs to specific roles; and generating new ‘visible’ career ideas. But many of my clients have also described how this doesn’t solve their main problem: being able to act. In fact it makes making a decision and taking action even harder, because you haven’t achieved the inner transformation that gives you clarity, courage and the ability to take action.
When you are looking for more fulfilling work in a career world that is changing faster than at any other time in living memory, action requires three things: clarity, confidence and belief. And when you are drowning in a flood of information and endless possibilities, these three qualities quickly get buried under a disempowering heap of doubts.
Never lose sight of this fact - career change is not a purely transactional endeavour. It comes with a shedload of emotion, because we are human beings, beset by doubts, fears, negative internal chatter, and an exceptional ability to procrastinate!
And AI is not human. It may be able to simulate compassion and sympathy for your situation. It may be able to ‘tune in’ to your needs as it becomes familiar with your style and context, but can it recognise incongruence between your first question and your last? Can it challenge you when you are struggling to articulate what is really happening for you? Can it truly empathise and offer support based on your mood, emotional state and needs you have not expressed?
I believe AI has a role to play in the career change process, but I don’t believe it can replace the experience of working through an intelligent and flexible process, with a human coach, someone who knows and understands you and your context, and has your best interests at heart. That is very different from the ‘blind support’ that some AI tools provide.
Where a human coach makes choice and action possible
Exploring, choosing and securing a new career direction is a tricky business. Of course it happens every day, and there is proof that many professionals redirect their careers once, twice or many more times during the course of their work lives. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. And what I see in my career change clients is that they gain confidence from two things: firstly, working through a tried and tested career change process because it allows them to feel that they have looked at all the angles. But secondly, it's the very human and more messy parts of the career change process: the unpredictable emotional bits that sap confidence. I’m talking about the very normal doubts and fears that accompany any change; the internal gremlins who change the weather in our heads; the friends and family who chime in, and whose opinion we value. It’s not easy to see a career change through. Not easy, but as my many successful clients will tell you - it is possible. Their career changes prove it.
In this messy landscape of emotion and mood, energy, strategy, and the additional compounding element of the fast-changing career world, you may start to see why an experienced human coach may have more to offer. In my experience, these are some of the reasons why a human career change coach has the edge:
They provide accountability when fear kicks in
They work with you to build confidence when your work identity is in transition
They offer emotional support through periods of uncertainty
They offer nuanced, insightful challenges when you may be self-sabotaging
They offer personalised reflection and truth-telling (not bland people-pleasing ‘support’)
They inspire momentum and follow-through
They work alongside you as a trusted human witness during this time of reinvention
They work with you to reimagine what is possible and doesn’t yet exist
They work with you to identify which risk is worth taking
‘AI can remix what exists. Only humans can reimagine what is possible’
Open to Work by Ryan Roslansky & Aneesh Raman
Coaching is different from information-gathering
People rarely need more information when they’re facing a complex and nuanced decision.
They need help becoming brave enough to act.
I’ve noticed that most professionals who are stuck in a career that no longer suits or fulfils them remain unable to act for several reasons:
They don’t know what they truly want - perhaps no one has ever asked them what they want for their life and from their work. Many of us have drifted along on the tide of what we think is expected of us, seeking promotions, following a given career path, until one day we wake up and realise this isn’t where we want to be. The most common question here: ‘Is this it?’
>> Now is the time to ask what you want and need from your work - at this stage of your life
They are afraid of making the wrong decision - after all, they are used to having all the answers, and it’s natural to imagine all the worst-case scenarios (ably abetted by our gremlins of course.) Here, the search for more information and more options can overwhelm us. You need a way of evaluating the good ideas from the bad - according to your own criteria
>> It’s time to work on identifying how you view ‘success’, and what the ‘right decision’ would look like for YOU
They feel pulled in multiple directions - not only the options but the WHY behind each one. There are a lot of moving parts in this choice and gaining clarity of what your priorities are at this stage is essential
>> Work on creating your own criteria and their order of priority will help bring you clarity to make a decision and then act
They have lost trust in themselves - although able to make professional decisions every day, they may have lost the ability to make a confident personal choice. The desire to be certain is very active here and can keep us stuck for many months or even years
>> Work on choosing a new direction that aligns with your values, plays to your strengths, ignites your interest, and gives you a sense of purpose - these all provide you with solid ground during the ever-changing sea of doubts and possibilities
They cannot see a realistic or inspiring path forwards - 'we can only see what we can see’, and there is so much more to the career world than what appears on jobs boards. We can talk ourselves out of what could be viable options just because we haven’t anchored into what a route could give us, instead letting ‘how can I possibly get there?’ trip us up. We often dismiss options before we have honestly explored them
>> Ask ‘What will this option give me, allow me to do, and what results could I achieve in this role?’ If those answers inspire and energise you, that’s important. Pay attention. Only then do you turn to the ‘How do I make this happen?’
They cannot predict the future world of work - none of us can! But that’s no reason to stay paralysed in the wrong place. All the more reason to get super clear on your strengths and motivations, on how you can combine your strengths alongside AI, in ways that lean into your very human edge
>> Work on identifying your human strengths, human skills you love using, and the kinds of problems you are motivated to help solve
So-called ‘soft-skills’ are fast coming back into style - and are replacing the ‘hard-skills that AI may be able to handle.
‘AI can process patterns. Only humans ask, What if we tried something completely different?’
Open to Work by Ryan Roslansky & Aneesh Raman
Clarity, clarity, clarity
CLARITY on what you want and need from your work, on what really fires you up, on what conditions you need to do your best work, on what gives you a sense of purpose, on the strengths you have mastered and love using, and what truly aligns with your highest values - clarity on all these things gives you CONFIDENCE.
CONFIDENCE, based on this self-knowledge and including the self-belief to envision a better future for yourself, whatever the world of work may look like, then allows you to take ACTION.
ACTION allows you to strategise and secure more fulfilling work.
Although AI can help you source information it cannot help you make an informed, human decision on the risks you are willing to take or the future you would like to create. Neither can it support you well through the messy bits of career change, when things get tricky and you need accountability, human insight and support, compassionate challenge in the face of potential self-sabotage, encouragement, truth-telling, momentum and follow-through. A coach has all these human attributes, understands because he or she is human, and very likely has the lived experience of making a career change work.
‘AI can calculate risk. Only humans decide what risk is worth taking.’
Open to Work by Ryan Roslansky & Aneesh Raman
So next time you or someone you know is weighing up ‘free coaching’ from AI versus the cost of a career change programme, ask yourself this:
‘What is the real cost of staying where I am and dipping into AI in a pretty haphazard way?’
The chances are you will be buried under piles of existing information without any effective means of evaluating it, stuck for another year or two, wasting your potential and failing to create opportunities that would suit you so much better.
The expensive option isn’t coaching.
It’s spending the next 2 years stuck.
One conversation can create momentum. Why not contact me to arrange a free 30-minute Career Crossroads Call? You’ll gain clarity on what’s keeping you stuck and the best steps forwards.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
“Never lose sight of this fact - career change is not a purely transactional endeavour. It comes with a shedload of emotion, because we are human beings, beset by doubts, fears, negative internal chatter, and an exceptional ability to procrastinate!”