Are You a Coach? What Can You Do That Artificial Intelligence Can’t? It’s An Important Question For Industry Professionals

Not that many years ago, bank tellers, supermarket checkout cashiers, and bookstore owners never believed machines would, or could, replace them.?And do a better job!?

?It would be a mistake to believe most jobs being replaced by automation are mainly blue-collar, assembly line,?and lower-wage positions.?Consider the many high-salaried stockbrokers being displaced by no-commission apps like TD Ameritrade.?White collar tax accountants are being displaced with sophisticated technology – Turbo Tax, for instance.?Drones are replacing pilots.?John and KiKi Winters earned over $250,000 a year taking arial photos of high-end properties from their single engine plane, for upscale real estate brokers.?But drones do it for ten-cents-on-a-dollar and take better photos because they can access air space that planes cannot.?And when self-driving vehicles inevitably replace humans, where will all the drivers go??

?It can never happen to me

In just about every instance, no one initially believed a machine could replace them; never mind do a better job.?But the digital workplace is here and organizations, leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, and just about everyone at every level are struggling to adapt.?For example, JPMorgan Chase now employs AI software to perform the tedious job of interpreting tens of thousands of commercial loans, reducing more than 750,000 hours of lawyer-billing-time a year.?Where will these attorneys transition to?

?AI software can now identify leukemia in photos and X-rays, learning and adapting more rapidly than technicians. Amazon.com reduced new hire training to only two days, because of its newest robotics used in shipping.?When was the last time you actually had to stop to pay a toll??I once had over 700 books in my library.?Now, most are on my Kindle.

?AI’s impact on the employment space

What influence will AI have on the résumé writing, career coaching, and employment professions moving forward??It’s already having an impact.?There are a significant number of companies providing virtual, non-human résumé writing and career coaching services – for a fraction of the cost most of us humans charge.?So, this is a good time to raise a cautionary red flag here.?Anyone who believes AI will ‘pass over’ the career coaching and résumé writing industry, must do so at their own peril.

?Free résumés

When I Googled Free Résumés in preparation for drafting this article, the first few pages were flooded with free résumé services. The few I tried were automated and the final products were passable.?I sprang for a $4.98 upgrade on one service, and the résumé I received was surprisingly good.?Yes, perhaps many of the free services included a bait and hook strategy to upsell.?But they did all provide a free passable résumé quickly and, for the most part, effortlessly.

?Career coaching

Any manner of performance-related coaching, including career coaching, tends to be viewed as personal, individualized, and non-replicable.?This is because coaching requires back and forth conversations, feedback, and interpretation - the human connection.?But what if there was an industry-wide transformation taking place, one where career and résumé coaches weren’t human??Artificial Intelligence has already made its way into the learning and development sectors of society, and more recently it’s been showing up in the coaching space.?And evidence suggests that, generally speaking, AI-enabled coaching performs as well, or better, than humans.

?Where it began – in the 1960s

If you research AI-enabled coaching, you’ll discover that one of the first AI robots was a chatbot named ELIZA.?It was built in an MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab back in the 1960s.?It was programmed to simulate a session with a psychotherapist using basic natural language processing technology. When ELIZA was first introduced, some users thought they were conversing with a real human.?And this using 1960s technology. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA ).

?Update – 2022:?Today, a behavioral coaching chatbot, TESS, addresses different facets of behavioral health, such as depression and anxiety. Available 24/7, TESS delivers customized integrative support, psychoeducation, and interventions through brief conversations via existing communication channels - i.e., SMS text messaging and Facebook Messenger (https://academic.oup.com/tbm/article-abstract/9/3/440/5489496 ).

?The economics can’t be ignored

Traditionally, coaching doesn’t scale well.?Coaching is costly because the average career coach charges between $100 and $500+ an hour.?Most job seekers can’t, or won’t, invest that amount of money.?As a result, coaching opportunities are limited, due mainly to price considerations (based mainly on time considerations).?But when AI can deliver comparable quality of service that can easily reach tens of thousands (millions) of customers simultaneously… the price point plumets to levels where people can afford it - $49.95 to $99.00.?It’s happening!?AI can be programmed as a planning and measurement tool to allow job seekers to reflect on assignments, complete tasks, and navigate through course work.?AI can follow up with endless numbers of job seekers, sending daily notifications and individual reminders and updates based on their personal situations.?

?And this is just the tip of the AI capability iceberg.?The big question is, and will continue to be:?What can you do that Artificial Intelligence can’t??

?How human career coaches can thrive

?First, let me point out that those who fear, fight, or refuse to acknowledge AI, will invariably struggle.?It ain’t going away.?And the quality of work that AI performs is consistently above average and improving.?The key to thriving in the future is to accept, collaborate, and grow with AI.?And for sure, there are numerous ways in which human coaches can compete with and surpass the capabilities of AI technologies.?Below are a few to get you started:

?1)???????????KAIZEN – take advantage of the “lag time” and “new opportunities”

AI requires a lot of data.?And the data is always evolving and changing.?If a group of programmers were to spend a month with 10 top résumé professionals, they could develop (and have, actually), an AI résumé program that would equal the quality of work of the 10 professionals. In most applicable circumstances, when there’s enough quality data, AI is extremely effective at simulating the human coaching process.?

?But if the human process is continuously growing and improving (Kaizen – continuous improvement), there will always be significant ‘lag time opportunities’ from when coaches first introduce new materials and methodologies, to when AI ultimately catches up.

?Additionally, new jobs will be created to gather more data and information faster and more accurately for AI improvements (which means human coaches must always stay ahead of AI, or else…).?Yes, AI may eliminate some job types.?But it will also create new ones; some we can’t imagine today.?The key is to be on the constant lookout for new opportunities, and then be one of the first to take advantage of them once identified.?

?2)???????????Empowerment integration

This, undoubtedly, will be the most important skill career coaches and résumé professionals will need to learn and master for achieving success moving forward.?Not unlike successful sport and entertainment coaches who integrate mindset with skillset training, job coaches will thrive by combining empowerment strategies with their job search coaching expertise (CEMP certification and John Maxwell Training, as examples).?

?AI cannot look into a job seeker’s eyes and see her fear, her pain, or her discomfort.?In other words, AI cannot assess or address feelings.?Human coaches can.?If AI asks a job seeker, “Do you like your résumé?,” and the job seeker responds, “Yes,” AI is unable to see or detect any possible uncertainty associated with the job seeker’s response.?Human coaches can.?AI cannot feel the job seeker’s feelings and attitudes.?Human coaches can.?

?Coaches, in all disciplines, who integrate motivational, empowerment, and emotional support services and techniques, will not only fend off an AI takeover, but will greatly benefit professionally and financially.?AI integration helps optimize efficiency, productivity, quality, best practices, and time management.?This allows you, the professional, to grow, expand, develop new best practices, and do more of what you love to do.?

?3)???????????I know enough Spanish to get around, but…

I know enough Spanish to get around, but not enough to have a conversation discussing politics, history, or my dreams last night.?This is a reasonable analogy as to how AI communicates today.?Have you ever been on the phone with a robot that tells you it understands complete sentences??Next time, ask it what it thinks of climate change.?Bottom line - AI is incapable of small talk. For now.

?In 2022, AI-enabled (non-human) career coaching remains rudimentary.?But we must keep in mind that rudimentary calculators (once provided free in boxes of Cracker Jacks), still added, subtracted, multiplied, and divided quicker and more accurately than most humans. That said, there is no evidence that any form of AI can simulate a real, deep, back-and-forth coaching conversation today. This is where opportunities exist for human coaches.?But here too, the window of opportunity is closing.

?Quantum technology. Quantum technology will revolutionize everything about the employment space.?What is Quantum technology??It is an emerging field of physics and engineering, which relies on the principles of quantum physics. Quantum computing, quantum sensors, quantum cryptography, quantum simulation, quantum metrology, and quantum imaging are all examples of quantum technologies, where properties of quantum mechanics, especially quantum entanglement, quantum superposition, and quantum tunneling, are important (WIKIPEDIA).?

?Areas where Quantum technology is currently being efficaciously used includes Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Computational Chemistry, Drug Design & Development, Cybersecurity & Cryptography, Financial Modelling, Logistics Optimization, and Weather Forecasting.?It is not unreasonable to anticipate that in 5-10 years, Quantum technologies will produce non-human AI that will be quite capable of simulating real, deep, back-and-forth coaching conversations.?

?4)???????????Virtual coaching

It’s quite likely that many AI, non-human coaching programs, will need to be expanded to offer human coaching services (for additional fees).?Those coaches who proactively reach out and collaborate with AI technical teams and organizations will find lucrative opportunities.?In fact, there are members of PARWCC currently launching AI, non-human career coaching and résumé writing services.?No doubt, they will need to integrate human-to-human coaching services at some point.?Collaboration will be the name of the game.

?5)???????????AI and challenged populations

When working with volatile, unpredictable, and other challenged populations and groups (hearing impaired, blind, disabled, PTSD, welfare-to-work, ex-offender populations, etc.), human coaching will be in demand.?Mind you, most career coaching software programs will use AI as it’s foundation - for tasks such as record keeping, billing, and client progress charting.?But coaching opportunities working with challenged populations will remain strong.

?Summary: AI’s future in the career coaching space

Forbes Insights, in collaboration with Accenture, Avanade, and Microsoft - companies using AI, surveyed 305 global executives entitled “Human AI Is Here.”?The results were not surprising – all companies reported more significant growth than companies that did not use AI.?(https://www.avanade.com/-/media/asset/thinking/human-ai-is-here-report.pdf )?

?It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to foresee AI as a fundamental player in the future of the career and employment coaching space.?The only question that needs to be asked is:

What can you do that Artificial Intelligence can’t??

?It’s an important question.

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