Tech Tip of the Week
If you’re still juggling five versions of every client’s resume in Google Docs, stop. Teal centralizes it all with templates, keyword matches, and tracked applications in one clean dashboard. Think of it as your client’s digital filing system that runs itself. Learn more here.
Every coach knows the feeling:
You open a client’s resume “just to glance at it,” and two hours later you’re still tweaking verbs and adjusting margins.
We all tell ourselves, “This isn’t the real coaching work,” yet it eats half our week.
Most clients you work with will eventually need you to touch their resume.
It’s a means to an end, but it’s not where our real value lies as a coach.
That’s where AI tools can help.
They give you your coaching hours back.
The resume is a vehicle, not the destination
Even if a client doesn’t hire you for resume help, you’ll still review it to understand who they are and how they’re telling their story. It’s unavoidable.
The resume is the tangible thing clients cling to, while the intangible growth like the career clarity, strategy and mindset work, is what actually changes their lives.
If you spend all your time editing documents, you’re short-changing both sides: your energy and their transformation.
That’s why it’s time to start seeing AI tools as a tool, not a threat.
AI can reclaim your coaching time
You don’t have to overhaul your practice or become a “tech person.”
You just need to offload the pieces that drain time but don’t require your professional judgment.
Think about it this way:
Formatting and keyword alignment: Tools like Teal automate updates, layout fixes, and job-match optimization.
Starter phrasing: ChatGPT can help generate draft language based on your client’s notes. You still refine the story, but you speed up the process without starting from a blank page.
Prep research: AI can summarize job postings or extract transferable-skills language so sessions start at the strategy level, not the data-entry level.
The goal isn’t to hand off the career coaching.
Instead, you are clearing the runway so you can focus on the deep work.
Why I recommend Teal
Full transparency: I’m an affiliate for Teal, but I only recommend it because I use it myself, and it saves me hours.
Teal’s resume builder does the heavy lifting:
Formatting
Tailoring to specific roles
Storing multiple versions in one dashboard.
It frees you to focus on the coaching conversations that matter most.
If you want to see how it works, here’s my Teal link.
You can explore it free, and if you decide to upgrade later, it supports my ongoing content for career coaches.
Freeing time for the “real work”
When you stop sinking hours into admin, you can redirect that time toward:
Helping clients name who they’re becoming—not just what they do.
Coaching the mindset shifts that make transitions stick.
Strengthening your presence and reflection time so you can show up sharper.
AI helps you move through the transactional faster, so you can dive into the transformational sooner.
The resume will probably never disappear.
But the time you spend buried in one can, and should.
Technology protects the human side of coaching.
When we let tools handle the logistics, we reclaim the margin to listen deeper, question better, and coach with more presence.
That’s the kind of future I want for this field, and for you too.
Heather
The Coach for Career Coaches
2 ways to work with me:
Join the next cohort of my fully online FCD (Facilitating Career Developments) course here
Apply for 1:1 coaching if you want honest feedback and real-time support to improve your client outcomes.