The Profession I Entered 35 Years Ago Ended. A New More Important Profession is Emerging

October 1, 2026 | Jay Block | Blog, CEMP

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 first of three departing articles.

I don’t believe our profession is ending. Yes, I believe the profession I entered 35 years ago has pretty much ended. But a much more important profession is emerging.

And I don’t say that with any sense of disappointment. I say it with excitement and fascination because I believe the entire employment space (resume writers, career coaches, HR pros, recruiters, etc.) is at a place in its evolution where it must totally reinvent itself – again. As it did in the early 1990s.

And here’s why.

For all of my career, our professional value was easy to define

We helped people write better resumes that instilled a higher degree of confidence and success. We taught them how to be more comfortable and poised during interviews. We helped them create job search strategies and tactical methods to change careers, options to climb the success ladder, and effective ways to tell their professional stories.

And as we evolved over the past 35+ years, we really did become very good at those things.

However… something beyond extraordinary is happening

Without question, Siri, Claude, Gemini, Alexa – Artificial intelligence – can now do much of the work we once considered ‘our professional specialties.’ And it does it consistently. And it improves regularly. And it does so to an infinite scale. For example, I can ‘perhaps’ work competently with 10-15 people at a time – providing personal and customized attention. AI can work with millions – perhaps an infinite – number of people personally with quality customized attention. For free, or at most, $20 a month (what I pay for unlimited Chat GPT).

Books that took me six months to write and another four months for McGraw-Hill to publish… AI can do in eight minutes (or less). AI can write a resume, evaluate and rewrite a LinkedIn profile, analyze job descriptions, identify keywords and skills, generate interview questions, evaluate facial and bodily responses to interview questions, suggest career options, and assist job seekers acknowledge and articulate past accomplishments. And here’s the thing:

AI can do this faster than a speeding bullet.
The quality is ‘consistent’ and extremely good.

It will only get better.

Yes, there are many critical discussion points that need to be debated. But I believe the following question is the most important question that needs to be addressed:

What happens when AI becomes very good at the things that clients historically paid us to do?

My answer to this is simple: We move up the value chain !

That is not the death, but the evolution of our profession

For decades, we have largely helped people present themselves for work. The emerging opportunity is to help people design their work life in a transformational AI world… “to enrich their whole life!”

And I would suggest that this is a much bigger responsibility… and a much bigger opportunity. Think about the difference.

A resume writer asks: “How can I make this person’s resume better?”

A career coach asks: “What should this person be doing next, and what strategies, tools, and training do they need to achieve their goal?”

AI can now handle this effectively !

We move up the value chain by transitioning into workplace strategists and architects

A workplace strategist (architect) asks:

“What workplace / career opportunities best provides the quality life a job seeker envisions for themselves and their families?”
“What kind of work, organization, environment and career path will allow this person to thrive in both life and the workplace?
“What kind of work environment and career path will inspire this person to become highly engaged and confident in the pursuit, regardless of adversity?
“How should this person design the next chapter of their professional life to achieve their life goals – and what strategic methodologies should they incorporate?”
How do they handle the bumps in the road with skill and poise?

That is where I believe our profession is headed. Let AI do its thing – knowing job seekers need invaluable human input.

The evolution of the career/employment space will transition from the traditional services to helping people:

Make better decisions
Manage overwhelming emotions
Seek out best options among conflicting advice
Answer the questions:
- What should I do next?
- How do I remain relevant?
- Should I change industries?
- Am I being realistic?
- What are emerging opportunities?
- What skills must I develop for the future?
- What are my core work values and their hierarchy?
- What kind of work will have meaning for me?
- How do I optimize human guidance in conjunction with AI?

Now here’s the thing… Chat GPT can now help people explore the above questions. And in many cases, it can even provide surprisingly good information, analysis and possibilities.

But a skilled ‘human’ still has to help a job seeker make sense of the possibilities!

Someone has to challenge assumptions.
Someone needs to know new strategies AI hasn’t grasped yet.
Someone needs to “personalize” AI’s work.
Someone has to ‘constructively’ play Devil’s advocate.
Someone needs to help recognize underlying patterns.
Someone needs to offer intuitive perspectives.
Someone needs to understand outside influences that affect workplace success.
Someone needs to teach techniques to ‘ride the emotional roller coaster.’
Someone has to hear what isn’t being said.
Someone has to see when words don’t align with physicality (when a job seeker responds to an AI question with a “yes,” when in their heart it’s a “no”).
Someone has to help turn information into good judgment.
Someone has to help turn good judgment into massive, measurable action.

This, I believe, is where the future lies. And it means you should stop thinking of AI primarily as your competitor. You should think of it as your most powerful new administrative assistant.

Let AI do more of the research. Let it analyze more information, produce first drafts, and even generate ‘possibilities.’ And let it handle most of the repetitive work we’ve been doing for decades.

Then you can spend more time doing the things that matter most:

Thinking
Questioning
Interpreting
Strategizing
Challenging and Encouraging
Decision Making
Life – Workplace Balance

You gotta learn new stuff FAST if you want to survive and thrive in the future

Without question, significant new subjects, methods, tools, beliefs, systems, processes, and certifications need to be studied. Then they need to be turned into effective, engaging services indispensable to those they serve.

Stop thinking of new ways to write resumes. AI is doing that. Stop thinking about how to get people to network better. AI is doing that.

What AI is NOT doing is customizing what AI is producing – and providing individualized attention to what I noted above: Thinking. Questioning. Interpreting. Strategizing. Challenging and Encouraging. Decision Making. Life – Workplace Balance.

This requires retraining. FAST! Perhaps the greatest mistake you could make is to spend the next several years defending the job description you had in the past. The opportunity is to create the job description you will need in the future.

And this requires vision and an openness to change.

Something larger

Workplace strategists and architects won’t simply help people get their next job – but will challenge them to understand where they are going, why they are going there, what they need, whom they themselves need to become to get there, and how to continually adapt once they arrive. Oh, and to enjoy the journey in pursuit of the goal – regardless of stress, anxiety, and fear !

Bottom line

After 35 years, I don’t see a profession disappearing. I see a profession in total transition. At warp speed. Resume writing and career coaching will become pretty much insignificant as AI takes over. But the career conversation will not. The “how do I secure the right workplace opportunity to live a fulfilling life” will not. The human factor will not.

Ask better questions – get better answers

The question isn’t: “Will AI replace resume writers and career coaches?”

A question is: “What can resume writers and career coaches become now that AI can do much of what they used to do?”

A cliché is something that’s said so much, over time it’s lost its meaning. That said, the starting point will be revisiting our industry’s two most famous questions… that we tend to pay little attention to: