The Lettersmith

AI isn’t coming for every manager.

But it may be coming for managers whose value is hard to see.

MarketWatch recently covered a Gartner forecast that through 2026, 20% of organizations will use AI to flatten their structures—potentially eliminating more than half of current middle-management roles.

And Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that AI was cited in roughly 1 in 4 job cuts in March and April 2026.

That doesn’t mean every middle manager is doomed.

It means “I keep the trains running” may no longer be enough.

For directors, operations leaders, sales leaders, plant leaders, and functional managers, the strongest career story is not:

“I manage people.”

It’s:

“I translate strategy into execution.”

“I turn ambiguity into action.”

“I use AI to improve decisions, not avoid accountability.”

“I coach teams through change.”

“I protect margin, customers, culture, and performance under pressure.”

AI can summarize a dashboard.

It cannot replace the leader who knows which number matters, who needs to hear it, and how to move people toward the next decision.

This is a good time to ask:

Does your resume and LinkedIn profile make your leadership value obvious?

Or do they make you look like another layer in the org chart?

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I'm Deborah Schuster, an award winning, 5X certified career coach. Need help finding your next role? Let me uncover and tell your success stories and personal brand in your resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, bio, and more. You can DM me on LinkedIn or reach out by email at [email protected].

❓️ So what the heck are all those letters after my name ❓️

I know... credentials can start to look like alphabet soup.

But I recently added a new one: CCSC — Certified Career Success Coach.
And this one matters because it expands how I can help.

Sometimes clients come to me **before** they’re ready for a resume.

They’re thinking:

“I know I need a change, but I’m not sure what’s next.”

“I’m burned out, but I don’t want to make a panic move.”

“I’m ready for more, but I don’t know how to position myself.”

That’s where career coaching comes in.

The CCSC gives me additional tools to help with career clarity, transitions, job search strategy, advancement planning, and accountability.

And as a quick refresher, here's what the other letters mean:

CERM — Certified Executive Resume Master
This means I’ve been certified at the executive resume level, with work evaluated for strategy, branding, achievement positioning, and presentation.

CPRW — Certified Professional Resume Writer
This is one of the foundational credentials in the resume writing profession and reflects tested expertise in resume strategy and development.

CGRA — Certified Graphic Resume Architect
This one focuses on visual resume strategy—using design, structure, color, and formatting to make documents easier to read while still keeping them professional and ATS-friendly.

NCOPE — Nationally Certified Online Profile Expert
This is my LinkedIn certification. It helps me create stronger LinkedIn profiles and coach clients on using LinkedIn more effectively in the job search.

CCSC — Certified Career Success Coach
My newest certification. This expands my ability to help clients with career clarity, transitions, job search strategy, advancement planning, and accountability.

So what does that mean for you?

You’re not getting a template.

You’re getting strategy, thoughtful questions, strong storytelling, and support for the bigger picture of your career.

In other words I can help with everything....from soup to nuts (groan!)

P.S. Have a new graduate in the family? I can help them, too.

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I'm Deborah Schuster, an award winning, 5X certified career coach. Need help finding your next role? Let me uncover and tell your success stories and personal brand in your resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, bio, and more. You can DM me on LinkedIn or reach out by email at [email protected].

Your next role may not come from choosing between “stay” or “go.”

For senior leaders, the strongest career strategy is often a dual track:

▶️ Pursue internal advancement while simultaneously running a targeted external campaign.

That was the strategy behind a recent executive coaching engagement I completed as part of my coaching certification (CCSC).

The client was an accomplished leader with strong results, but like many executives, they were facing a familiar challenge:

They had outgrown the way their value was being communicated.

Internally, they needed to be positioned for greater scope, influence, and visibility.

Externally, they needed a focused campaign that translated their leadership impact into language that resonated with decision-makers.

So we built both tracks.

1️⃣ Track 1: Strengthen the internal advancement story
We clarified the client’s leadership brand, business impact, and readiness for the next level. Then we created a plan to get there.

2️⃣ Track 2: Launch a targeted external campaign
We aligned the resume, LinkedIn profile, networking strategy, and interview messaging around the roles they actually wanted — not just the roles they had held before -- with a plan to get there.

The result was more than a stronger resume.

It was a clearer executive narrative.

A more confident job search strategy.

And a practical plan that allowed the client to explore external opportunities without abandoning internal growth.

That’s what I love about career coaching at the executive level.

It is not about chasing every opening.

It is about creating options, building leverage, and making intentional career moves from a position of clarity.

Earning my CCSC certification has sharpened the strategy, structure, and coaching tools I bring to this work — especially for leaders navigating complex career decisions.

Because sometimes the smartest move is not one path.

It is building the right two.

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I'm Deborah Schuster, an award winning, 5X certified career coach. Need help finding your next role? Let me uncover and tell your success stories and personal brand in your resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, bio, and more. You can DM me on LinkedIn or reach out by email at [email protected].

Big news on my end: I earned the Certified Career Success Coach (CCSC) credential through Career Directors International (CDI).

It was an intensive, evidence-based program built by award-winning University Placement Director Laura DeCarlo, President of CDI. I’m excited about what this adds for the people I support—especially around career clarity, job search strategy, transitions, and advancement.

A few ways I can help (not an exhaustive list):

✨ layoff reset + momentum
✨ career pivots + clear positioning
✨ return to work
✨ promotion strategy
✨ networking + interview story that lands

I'm Deborah Schuster, an award winning, 5X certified resume writer and career coach. Need help finding your next role? Let me tell your success stories in your resume and LinkedIn profile and help you create a comprehensive career plan. You can DM me or email me at [email protected].

Many people ask me, “What is the current trend in resumes?”

My answer is always the same:

Humanity.

Not AI writing.
Not a downloaded template.
Not keyword stuffing.
Not copying what everyone else is doing.

In a world filling up with deepfakes, generic AI content, and resumes that sound like they were assembled by committee, your resume needs to shout:

“REAL HUMAN.”

Here are 5 ways to do that:

1. The writing
Use language that sounds like you. Strategic? Yes. Polished? Absolutely. But not so sterilized that your personality disappears. And ditch those cliches!

2. The design
Your resume should have a visual point of view. Executive, modern, clean, bold, refined—whatever fits you and your target industry. Not whoever downloaded the same template. The design needs to guide the eye of the reader and reinforce your brand.

3. The branding
Your leadership brand should be unmistakable. A COO, VP of Sales, CFO, or Plant Manager should not all sound the same.

4. The accomplishment metrics
Numbers matter because they prove impact. But the best metrics also show context: what was broken, what you fixed, and why it mattered.

5. The specificity
If a line on your resume could apply to 500 other people, it probably needs to go.

Google “TORI winners” and study those resumes.

You’ll notice something quickly: they were written and designed for one person, and one person only.

Now review your own resume.

Could any section belong to someone else?

If yes, revise it.

Or ditch it.

Or hire a pro.

Because the next resume trend isn’t about looking more automated.

It’s about looking more alive.

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I'm Deborah Schuster, an award winning, 4X certified career coach. Need help finding your next role? Let me uncover and tell your success stories and personal brand in your resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, bio, and more. You can DM me on LinkedIn or reach out by email at [email protected].

Behind the curtain of resume writing, I’m thinking about far more than words on a page.

Yes, I’m thinking about strategy:
🔹 your goals,
🔹 what to highlight,
🔹 what to downplay,
🔹 how to make your story easy to skim,
🔹 which verbs carry the most weight,
🔹 what to tighten so everything fits,
🔹 and how to balance ATS keywords with a strong human message.

But I’m also thinking about what *never* appears on the document.

The private things you confide in me:
🔹 the pressure of providing for your family,
🔹 the fear of being downsized,
🔹 the child you want to send to college,
🔹 the stress of staying in a role that no longer fits,
🔹 the rejection that stings when no one calls back,
🔹 the spouse who’s ill,
🔹 the child who needs extra care,
🔹 the worries that wake you up at 3 a.m.,
🔹 and the future you’re trying so hard to protect.

That’s the part of resume writing people don’t always see.

I’m not just writing a document.
I’m helping you carry the weight of a turning point in your life.

And yes, my job is to see the best in you.

But more than that, it’s to make sure your next employer sees it too.

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I'm Deborah Schuster, an award winning, 4X certified career coach. Need help finding your next role? Let me uncover and tell your success stories and personal brand in your resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, bio, and more. You can DM me on LinkedIn or reach out by email at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

AI can speed up parts of your job search. It cannot tell your story.

AI is genuinely helpful for:

🔷Researching companies.
🔷Building a target list.
🔷Comparing similar job postings.
🔷Finding keywords for your resume.
🔷Suggesting networking paths into target companies.
🔷Helping polish a rough resume draft.

But only **if** it’s given clear direction.

Without strategy, positioning, and guardrails, AI usually does what AI does: it produces the same polished, wordy, cliché-filled fluff everyone else is using.

That’s when resumes start to scream “AI.”

Too generic.
Too verbose.
Too many buzzwords.
Not enough substance.
No clear brand.
No real voice.

And there are things AI still does poorly:

❌️ Choosing the most persuasive career story.
❌️ Knowing which achievements matter most.
❌️ Separating strong evidence from filler.
❌️ Matching the tone senior-level readers expect.
❌️ Understanding nuance, judgment, and what should be left unsaid.

AI is a terrific assistant.
It is not a substitute for strategy.

Use it for research, structure, keyword mining, and brainstorming.
But don’t let it flatten your experience into copy that sounds like everyone else.

The best resumes don’t sound like AI.

They sound like a leader who knows their value.

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I'm Deborah Schuster, an award winning, 4X certified career coach. Need help finding your next role? Let me uncover and tell your success stories and personal brand in your resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, bio, and more. You can DM me on LinkedIn or reach out by email at [[email protected]].

A lot of leaders still treat “return to the office” as a productivity strategy.

It isn’t.

This article, "The return-to-the-office trend backfires," says the opposite is true.
https://buff.ly/Uci2yB4

Performance rarely improves just because people are seen sitting at desks. Productivity improves when expectations are clear, communication is strong, and leaders know how to manage outcomes instead of proximity.

That matters far beyond HR policy.

It affects retention.
It affects morale.
And it absolutely affects executive credibility.

Because when results stall, the question is no longer, “Where are people working?”
It becomes, “Are we leading well enough for the way work actually happens now?”

For manufacturing leaders especially, not every role can be remote. But for the roles that can be flexible, forcing a blanket office mandate may say more about leadership comfort than business necessity.

The strongest leaders are not clinging to old symbols of control.

They are building systems of trust, accountability, and performance that fit today’s reality.

That is what modern leadership looks like.

What do YOU think: does flexibility strengthen performance, or weaken it?
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I'm Deborah Schuster, an award winning, 4X certified career coach. Need help finding your next role? Let me uncover and tell your success stories and personal brand in your resume, LinkedIn profile, cover letters, bio, and more. You can DM me on LinkedIn or reach out by email at [email protected]

I'm late trying the AI caricature trend.
OK, they made me cuter than I am IRL, but hey...I'll take it!
(And I wish my nails looked that good after typing all day.)

The background images nicely encapsulate what I do.
(If you ignore the "Innevding Petctive"...whatever that is!)

Who else has tried this? Share your results in the comments!