The Lettersmith

Show of hands.✋️

Anyone else attending lots of graduation parties this month? 👩‍🎓

It’s such an exciting season — caps, gowns, proud families, big dreams.

And then comes the real-world question:

“How do I actually get hired?”

New grads are entering a tough job market, and they need standout resumes more than ever.

But what makes a resume stand out in the AI age?

A clearly human resume.

I’ve had the honor of creating 4 TORI award-winning new graduate resumes, and while the design may catch your eye, the real strength is the storytelling.

Each resume is built around that student’s unique experience: projects, internships, campus activities, leadership, volunteer work, part-time jobs, research, presentations, and more.

Because here’s the myth I’d love to retire:

“New grads don’t have accomplishments.”

They do.

They just don’t always know how to see them yet.

A strong resume writer asks the right questions and turns “just a class project” or “just a part-time job” into evidence of initiative, communication, problem-solving, leadership, and follow-through.

Your new grad doesn’t need a resume that sounds like everyone else’s.

They need a career-launching story that sounds like them.
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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 or reach out by email at [email protected].

Most job seekers are working hard.

But many are working hard on the **least effective parts** of the job search.

They apply online.
Refresh their inbox.
Tweak the resume again.
Wait for the call.

A strong resume matters — absolutely.

But your **job search strategy** matters just as much.

To celebrate earning my CCSC — Certified Career Success Coach certification, I’m offering a special bonus:

Purchase a resume package between **June 4 and June 16**, and you’ll receive a **free one-hour job search coaching session — a $295 value**.

During the session, we can talk through what actually makes sense for your situation:

How to target better-fit roles.
How to use LinkedIn more strategically.
How to connect with recruiters and decision-makers.
How to build momentum without feeling pushy.
How to job search confidentially when your current employer can’t know.
How to balance “open” visibility with quieter, behind-the-scenes strategies.

Because not every job search should be loud.

Sometimes you need visibility.

Sometimes you need discretion.

Often, you need both.

Resume + coaching = your story on paper and your strategy in motion.

PS--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 here or reach out by email at [email protected].

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]).