Blog
Insights
Ideas and guidance from the RS Works team on workforce development, hiring, and career support.
Andrea Gerson
How to evaluate an AI resume tool for a caseload
How career services directors can evaluate an AI resume tool across a full caseload: accuracy, tailoring, data handling, staff review, and intake depth.
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Andrea Gerson
What happens to your participants' data when you use an AI resume tool
Where participant PII goes when a resume enters an AI tool, why it carries more risk for workforce populations, and the data questions to ask any vendor.
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Andrea Gerson
ChatGPT vs. a workforce program tool: what actually differs for resume writing
ChatGPT can draft a resume. A workforce program tool adds intake, transferable-skills translation, coach review, and safer data handling. Where they diverge.
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Andrea Gerson
The Three Words That Change How Clients Talk About Their Work
The phrase on behalf of turns task-list bullets into stories of scale and impact. Use it in session to coach stronger resumes and interview answers.
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Andrea Gerson
What Are We Preparing People For?
The most useful career education is not a job function. It is an entrepreneurial way of seeing: identify a problem and figure out how to address it.
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Andrea Gerson
What to Coach After a Layoff (and What Not to Do)
After a layoff, the resume gap is rarely the real risk. Help clients keep structure, start the search early, and stay in contact with their own competence.
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Andrea Gerson
100+ Jobs Still Relevant in 10 Years
A Holland-code list of 100 jobs projected to stay relevant as AI and automation change the labor market.
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Andrea Gerson
The Interview Prep Activity to Run With Clients
Most interview panic comes from planning to wing it. Use this three-step story activity in session so clients walk in with reusable, specific answers.
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Andrea Gerson
The Vanishing Women: Coaching Reentry After Caregiving
Women returning after caregiving often have strong older experience and thin recent pages. How to position the resume without shrinking them.
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Andrea Gerson
The Boundaries We Choose
A late-night ride to a workforce conference becomes a question about whether helping professionals choose connection or distance when someone is in crisis.
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Andrea Gerson
How to Translate a Client's Past Experience for a Career Change
Career-changers list every job and muddy the message. Coach them to keep relevant, recent, impressive proof, and rewrite the rest instead of deleting it.
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Andrea Gerson
3 Ways Career Pathways Programs May Fail Underserved Communities
Three questions for career pathways programs: whose agenda, does training match industry, and are participants treated as talent or as outcomes?
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Andrea Gerson
3 Interview Prep Steps to Use With Clients
Interview panic often means the client planned to think on their feet. Use SPARL stories in session so they can show strengths, not one-liners.
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Andrea Gerson
What Coaches Can Learn From Rage-Applying
Rage-applying names three coaching problems: under-applying, fixating on one posting, and hiding short roles. Use the lesson without the spray.
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Andrea Gerson
Why This Burnout Feels Different
The burnout on caseloads now is more chronic than Covid survival-mode. Connection, asking for help, and slowing down are the session moves.
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Andrea Gerson
How to Help Clients Stay Current in a Changing Field
Four small habits for clients who cannot track every industry shift: news alerts, one association, targeted reading, and a few courses a year.
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Andrea Gerson
6 Ways to Steady Clients When Layoffs Are in the News
Layoff headlines freeze a caseload. Six concrete moves for clients besides refreshing the news, including getting the resume ready now.
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Andrea Gerson
It’s time to democratize access to quality resumes.
On a caseload you see who claims credit for shared wins. Patterns often track with gender, education, and class. What coaches can do.
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Andrea Gerson
3 Reasons People are Stuck in Low-Paying Roles (and how to address them)
Why are so many people trapped in underpaying roles with little chance at self-sufficiency? We explore contributing factors and methods to mitigate them.
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Andrea Gerson
Soft Skills Belong in Bullets, Not as Resume Slogans
Soft skills matter at work. They do not belong on a resume as slogans. Pull posting language, then prove each skill in a bullet.
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Andrea Gerson
Industry Agnostic Resume: What It Is and When to Use It
When clients change fields, an industry-agnostic resume keeps transferable proof front and center. When to use it, and when not to.
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Andrea Gerson
How Long Should Your Client's Resume Be?
There is no fixed page count. Help clients choose one or two pages from relevant experience, leadership, and whether extra sections help.
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Andrea Gerson
Stop Clients From Repeating the Resume in the Cover Letter
Help clients stop pasting resume bullets into cover letters. Use the resume for scan-friendly proof and the letter for a few stories that match the posting.
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Andrea Gerson
Job Search Tools Worth Putting in a Staff Toolkit
Help clients stay organized with a tracker and use posting-match tools as a coaching prompt, not a vanity score.
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Andrea Gerson
How to Help Clients Add Keywords That Actually Mean Something
A skills section is not always needed. For field changers and online applications, coach posting-based keywords instead of soft-skill labels.
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Andrea Gerson
Should Clients Put Pronouns or Other Optional Signals on a Resume?
There is no single rule for pronouns or other optional resume signals. Coach clients through values, region, and target culture so the choice is intentional.
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Andrea Gerson
Help Clients Nurture a Network When the Search Gets Isolating
Job search isolation makes clients stop reaching out. Give them two small moves: three texts, and one reusable networking note you write together.
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Andrea Gerson
If They've Done It, Help Them Elevate It
Career-changers hide partial experience. Coach them to name tools they have used, then prove those skills in bullets instead of a skills dump.
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Andrea Gerson
How to Help Clients Test a New Field Without Overcommitting
When clients want a new field, a targeted volunteer role can test fit and add resume language. Use VolunteerMatch, then write the work like a job.
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Andrea Gerson
Assessments That Help Clients Explore a Career Change
When clients feel directionless, use short interest and values assessments as session tools, then map results to real occupations together.
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Andrea Gerson
“Nobody wants to work anymore”
Workers reject the idea that a job is their whole worth. Workforce staff can still help clients find work that treats them as whole people.
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Andrea Gerson
How to Help Clients Modernize Skills Without a Full Credential
When education is thin, a short current course can add keywords. Use Class Central as a staff resource, then list only relevant study.
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Andrea Gerson
A Recruiter’s Perspective on Job-Seeker Mental Health
Recruiter Amy Wheeler on spotting mental health strain in candidates and how workforce coaches can support clients returning to work.
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Andrea Gerson
“I want a better job that has flexibility!”
Clients coming out of disruption want flexibility and better pay. A keyword block under the summary is one of the fastest ways to make that case.
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Andrea Gerson
The Hard Work of Parenting
Should parenting go on a resume? How to coach clients who want credit for caregiving without turning the document into a slogan.
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Andrea Gerson
Client Spotlight: Matthew Parker
From incarceration and addiction to teaching at UC Berkeley. What career coaches can learn from Matthew Parker’s return to school in his forties.
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Andrea Gerson
Are our clients languishing?
Languishing is the blah middle between depression and flourishing. How workforce staff can name it with clients and coach small next steps.
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Andrea Gerson
From jobless -> $85,000/year
A career counselor used RS Works to rework a client's resume. He went from no callbacks to three offers, including an $85,000 role.
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Andrea Gerson
How to Address a Resume Gap Due to Covid (Or Anything Else)
How to coach clients through resume gaps from caregiving, illness, or disruption, and frame the time away without apology or oversharing.
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Andrea Gerson
3 Questions for Coaching a Career Change After Disruption
When a client’s industry shrinks, do not spray the old resume at old jobs. Three session questions: strengths, where work is going, what to learn.
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Andrea Gerson
How to Coach a Strong Career Summary
Coach a professional summary that frames trajectory and proof, not a wish list. Put scan-friendly numbers and outcomes at the top.
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Andrea Gerson
How to Handle Hobbies on a Client's Resume
Skip generic hobby lists. Coach clients to show personality through volunteer work, leadership, or one cover-letter line that still qualifies.
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Andrea Gerson
2 Top Resume Tips
Two resume habits that help counselors move faster without cutting quality: stronger bullets first, then a scan-friendly format.
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