Don Orlando

  Tired? Learn how to recognize empathy fatigue before it burns you. Our next Member 4 Member session focuses on actionable strategies to preserve your equilibrium while helping your clients through their stress. Educational webinars are included at no charge with your membership.     Worth Your Click Check out PARWCC’s career center for your […]

Like you, I’ve seen many lists of the soft skills employers are looking for. Most of the time, they say the same things with minor variations that read more like category labels than actual behaviors. What are the REAL soft skills, the ones they don’t put on lists, that people should be working on? Based […]

“Quality, relevant content can’t be spotted by an algorithm, nor by AI. You can’t subscribe to it. You can’t download it. You need people—actual human beings—to create or curate it.”      Kristina Halvorson, “Content Strategy for the Web”   It may be the toughest job you have: making sure you always deliver the very best quality. There […]

Coming out of PARWCC Thrive 2026, one of the things I kept thinking about was how easy it is to let professional development become something we intend to do rather than something we actually make time for. Most of us are busy serving clients, running businesses, managing deadlines, and keeping up with the work already […]

I have been thinking about where the unique value of a career-services professional sits now, when AI can produce so much of what we have traditionally handed to clients. If we define our value by the information we give, the content we create, or the deliverable we produce, we’re competing directly with AI. I don’t […]

After 35+ years writing for PARW and PARWCC’s Spotlight (since 1990), I will conclude my contributions at the end of 2026. This is the second of three departing articles. I have a suggestion for résumé writers, career coaches, LinkedIn experts, employment strategists, and everyone else who earns a living helping people find work. For a […]

As a career coach, I provide comfort, empathy, and motivation to my job-seeking clients.  I offer solace when they feel discouraged, dejected, or ghosted after submitting resumes with no response. Or when they feel disillusioned after an interview because they were not selected, or when they are passed over for an eagerly anticipated promotion. Or […]

I, like many fine people, grew up in Chicago. And as my family is tired of hearing, I love their grid street pattern. Most of the streets are at a right angle with a rational number or naming scheme and traffic systems in place to make an easy transition from small to medium to big […]

October 2026 For career coaches and résumé writers, the September labor market presented a familiar contradiction. Job postings showed signs of improvement, unemployment remained relatively low, and employers continued to report millions of available positions. Yet qualified job seekers were still struggling to secure interviews, navigate lengthy hiring processes, and turn promising opportunities into offers. […]

Years ago when our kids were young, my husband decided he wanted to buy a sailboat. Did I, his life partner, know how to sail? I did not. (I don’t really even swim.) But he was enthusiastic and he made a good point that our kids were growing up very quickly and time together for […]