Returning to Humanity after AI

AI is scanning your resume to make sure AI didn't write it. Let that sink in. In this episode, Noelle gets honest about job searching in a market that feels like it's all algorithm and no humanity, and the very real fear that being a people leader might not be "enough" anymore. But here's the truth she keeps coming back to: The pendulum WILL swing back around and we'll need our humanity more than ever when it does!

Transcript

0:05

Welcome back to We Lead Anyway. I'm Noelle, senior leader, career coach, and your host. Today I want to acknowledge what some of y'all are going through out there. It's it's hard in these trying to get hired streets, isn't it? I'm also currently in the job market, and I want to talk about what it's like right now in this moment as someone who has spent her entire career being a people leader, someone who leads with connection and with presence and with heart, with the deeply human stuff. That's why I went to school. Business psychology, industrial organizational psychology. And I'm gonna tell you the irony of my current situation is not lost on me. Okay, because I am out here submitting applications and AI is scanning my resume to make sure I did not use AI. I'm just gonna get I'm just gonna let that sink in. All right, so a non-human is checking my work to make sure I sound human enough. So here's where I'm honestly sitting right now. I identify so heavily as a people leader that it's not just what I do, it is who I am. The relationships, the coaching moments, the reading the room, the knowing when someone needs a direct conversation versus when they need someone to just sit with them for a minute. This podcast, that is my whole thing. And I'll be transparent with you. I have had a real true fear creeping in during this season. What if the job market doesn't need that anymore? What if every posting I look at has been so automated, so AI integrated, so process driven that there is genuinely no room left for the kind of leader that I am. Have any of you felt that? That quiet fear that maybe you're too human for where work is going, for where the world is going. And I want to allow us to feel that for a second because I think a lot of us are feeling it. And if we're talking about it, maybe we're not seen as agile or open or versatile or ready to evolve, which is not the case, is it? But I've had to really figure out my next steps because I am of a certain age, 23, and the market is bananas. But here's what I keep coming back to: AI is not coming for your job. AI is coming for the version of you that refused to grow or that couldn't grow. The version that does the same thing the same way every single time. Now, an organization, they might call that a SME. But the nuance, the judgment calls, the knowing when the data is right, but the answer is still wrong for the team or the moment or the or the person, that is something you cannot prompt engineer your way through. That's yours. And the job market will remember that. Maybe not today, but it will. Now let me go back to the resume thing because I can't let it go. AI is literally being used to screen for authenticity right now, to flag whether your application sounds too generated, too polished, too not human, I guess. But here's the good news. That means that somewhere somehow, someone in a boardroom made a decision that sounding human matters, that there's a difference between a machine answer and a real one. And that the real one is worth filtering for. And that's actually the entire argument that I'm making, hiding inside this very system that feels like it's working against us. Now, am I bummed that someone who sounds polished, thorough, and intelligent is automatically mistaken for AI? Yes, absolutely. But I guess that's where we've gone as a society. But I'd be remiss if I did not mention that I have done tests where I wrote something that came from my little shiny brain and put it through an AI detector, three of them actually, and it came out AI. It was positive that I was AI. And no, it's not because I've used AI so much. It's just I am an intelligent and polished person. Either way, AI is screening for you. The real you, the the one with the specific voice with specific experiences and a specific way of seeing problems. So the system is frustrating, yes, but the underlying signal is actually in our favor. So there's some cognitive dissonance for me there. And here's where I want to be really clear because I'm not telling you to accept or reject AI. That's not the move either, to just completely reject it because AI has been a total asset for me with certain things, personal and professional. But the intelligent play, and I mean genuinely intelligent, not just trendy for now, is to learn how to leverage AI in ways that amplify what you already do well. We're not gonna math as well, we're not gonna code as well, we're not gonna create as fast. But you can use it to research faster, to draft the first version of things that you would spend an hour just staring at normally, to organize information, to spot patterns. Let it do the time-consuming mechanical work so that you can show up more fully for the human work. That's how AI can be a collaborator for you. It handles the volume and you handle the judgment. And what I don't want for you, and what I'm actually actively trying to avoid myself, is becoming so dependent on AI for thinking that we stop trusting our own instincts. Right? Just stop developing your own voice. Stop practicing the skills, the various skills that made you so valuable in the first place, because you still need them. Because the thing about skills, if we don't continue to use them, they get quiet. We won't completely lose them, but they will get quiet. And in a world that is rapidly automating everything that it can, the last thing you want to do is to have let your most human capabilities go rusty because you outsource them to Claude. The goal is not to use AI less. The goal is to stay so sharp in your humanity that AI is a tool in your hands, not a replacement for them because they can't replace humanity. And I truly believe, and this is where the faith part of this conversation comes in, that things will have to come back around. We are in a moment right now where everything is being tested. Companies are automating because they can, because it's fast and it's cheap and it's scalable. I get that. And some of them are going to find out the hard way what they lost in the process, the team culture that eroded because nobody was really people leading anymore, the client relationships that dried up because every interaction felt transactional or frustrating because you're talking to a bot or the talent that walked out the door because we didn't feel sane. You can't automate belonging. You cannot automate the moment when someone decides to stay or go based entirely on how their manager made them feel last Tuesday. Those things are coming back. They have to, because organizations are still made of people. And people don't ultimately thrive in environments that treat them like a simple prompt themselves. So when that pendulum swings and it will swing, I want you to be ready. I want us to be ready, not scrambling to remember, oh, how do I lead people? How do I connect? Because I spent three years letting a chat bot do it for me. The leaders who are going to be undeniable on the other side of this moment are the ones who kept practicing, who kept showing up, who kept being human on purpose, even when the market made it feel unnecessary. That's what I'm doing. I'm contracting with organizations, ERG groups or leadership teams, coaching and developing that the leaders aren't, because hiring managers right now are focused on people who can implement AI and automation. So I am staying old school and it's a risk and it's scary, but I think it's important. So here's what I want to leave you with today. You don't have to compete with AI on its terms. You will lose that race every single time. And so will I. Win on your terms instead, though. You can do that. Stay close to that thing that you do that nobody can explain in a job description, but everyone feels when you're in the room. The way you make people feel like they matter, the way you ask a question nobody else asks because they don't have your perspective or lived experience or expertise. The way you can give really difficult feedback, but still make your employee feel seen and heard and valued. You gotta keep that sharp. You will need it again. I am in this with you right now, actively, literally in real time, sending applications, sitting with the uncertainty, wondering sometimes if the world I was built for still has a place for me. And then I remember the world I was built for is not gone. It's just going through something. And so am I. To be honest with you, AI actually levels the playing field. It makes everyone the same. But what you authentically bring to the table, that's what gives you the edge. So this time is a little hard and a little scary. And it doesn't seem like it's really for some of us, does it? But what are we gonna do? We're gonna lead anyway. I'd love to hear in the comments if you have the same type of trepidation about whether or not you'll have a voice anymore in the wake of AI. And if you have a topic you'd like me to discuss, email me at noelleadsanyway at gmail.com. And if you're interested in personal or professional development, or if you'd like me to visit your organization to coach or develop, visit leadwithnoelle.com. And until then, go take up space.