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✅ Inside this issue:

• How to actually make changes at your org from an expert

• Use AI authentically to build a skills-based resume

• Thania’s favorite finance tool for business

• Why you’ll likely be supervising an AI employee one day soon

INTERESTING READS

🎓 Gen Z may be thinking about college all wrong, with career readiness starting earlier than graduation.

🤖 Workers are already using AI to move up, while employers struggle to keep pace.

🧰 Workforce boards now have a new skills toolkit to help drive skills-based transformation.

💸 Workforce Pell is here, and now states have to make it work.

LEADERSHIP

How to achieve change in your LER organization

You were hired to implement a new system. To bring in LER technology and move your organization toward a more modern, skills-based ecosystem.

And from where you sit, it makes sense. You can see the value.

But instead of momentum, it feels like a constant struggle to get your organization to get behind it.

Budget doesn’t align. Other departments don’t see the vision. Decisions stall in red tape.

And you’re still expected to deliver.

You’re leading change, not just implementing

What most people don’t tell you is this: You weren’t just hired to implement a system. You were hired to build the buy-in that makes it work.

I’ve seen this firsthand, sitting in boardrooms where these decisions are made, working alongside HR and tech teams trying to drive adoption, and now supporting leaders as a consultant and change practitioner.

When humans are involved, change isn’t just about the tool. It’s about priorities, trust, risk, and whether people are willing to move with you.

That’s why what looks like an implementation problem rarely is.

What actually moves change forward

But people don’t take action based on logic alone.

They’re asking: What does this mean for me? What might I lose?

Change adoption depends on desire, which is shaped by personal impact and trust.

So even strong ideas stall when those questions go unanswered.

If you’re in this position, don’t just work to prove the idea. Instead, focus on building alignment around it at all levels of the org.

Here are 4 steps to help:

1. Build alignment - before rollout (and during it)

This means having 1:1 conversations. 

Start with your most critical stakeholders:

• decision-makers

• department leads

• influential voices (not just titles)

Your goal is not to just present a plan. It’s to understand clearly.

Ask:

• What concerns you about this?

• What would make this hard for your team?

• What would success look like from your perspective?

Then do three things with what you hear:

1. Look for patterns
   If multiple people raise the same concern, it’s a real barrier, not an outlier.

2. Adjust your approach
   This might mean: changing rollout timing, adding support or training, or reframing how you position the initiative.

3. Close the loop
   Go back and say: “Here’s what I heard, and here’s how we’re addressing it.”

You can do this in a follow-up 1:1 or in a group setting, but this is how trust builds and alignment becomes real.

2. Translate value into business terms

Leaders aren’t evaluating features. They’re evaluating risk and return.

Anchor your message in outcomes:

• Where does this save time?

• Where does it reduce cost?

• Where does it improve effectiveness?

If your value isn’t landing, it usually means it hasn’t been translated into what matters to that individual.

A simple test:
Is this clearly cheaper, faster, or more effective than what exists today for this leader?

3. Reduce perceived risk

Even good ideas stall when the risk feels too high.

Lower the barrier:

• Start with a pilot

• Roll out in phases

• Define clear success metrics

This builds confidence over time.

4. Secure visible leadership sponsorship

Approval isn’t enough. Change management research consistently shows that active, visible sponsorship is the top driver of successful change.

People don’t just follow plans. They follow signals.

If leaders positively reinforce the change, teams take it seriously. If they don’t, adoption fades quickly.

Get the buy-in right and watch the change happen

You weren’t just hired to implement a tool.

You were put in a position to influence how people think, prioritize, and act.

That’s the real work.

So the question isn’t just whether your solution is strong.

It’s whether you’re building the relationships, alignment, and support system needed for it to succeed.

Get the buy-in right, and the change will stick.

FINANCES

Payment solution for small teams + business

As a solopreneur running a marketing business with several clients and a newsletter, it’s important to me to keep costs low and stay lean in my budget.

I don’t want to pay for extra fees just to get paid for my work! But it seems like every payment solution, like Stripe or PayPal, charges fees + take 3% from me.

Until I found Melio…

And now I can pay bills, get paid, and stay organized. Melio keeps my business payments simple so I can focus on my passions, not all the silly paperwork and admin my little ADHD heart hates.

It’s free to get started, and they have a ton of financial solutions to support you as you grow (think accounts payable, receivables, etc).

Check it out and let me know if you like it!

WORKPLACE

6 prompts to build a skills-based resume authentically

Leaders, managers, and professionals at every level are increasingly using tools like ChatGPT to update resumes, optimize LinkedIn profiles, and prepare for career transitions. The problem? Most AI-generated resumes now sound painfully similar, with recruiters struggling to tell who can actually do the work versus who simply knows how to prompt AI well.

At the same time, the workforce is moving toward verified skills, digital credentials, and Learning and Employment Records (LERs) that help employers better understand what candidates can actually do.

While the job market adapts to verified credentials and skills-based hiring, traditional resumes still matter. The strongest candidates are learning how to use AI authentically to build stronger skills-based resumes that communicate real capability, measurable outcomes, and business impact.

Here are six ways to do that without sounding like every other application in the pile.

1. Feed AI real business context, not just your resume

Skills-based hiring depends heavily on demonstrated outcomes and transferable capabilities. The richer the context, the easier it becomes for AI to identify patterns tied to leadership, operations, communication, transformation, and execution. To generate meaningful skills-based positioning, gather:

• performance reviews

• project summaries

• presentations

• KPIs or business outcomes

• budgets managed

• leadership initiatives

• strategic plans

• speaking engagements

• LinkedIn recommendations

Prompt:

2. Use AI to identify skills hidden inside your experience

One of the biggest challenges in skills-based hiring is that many professionals struggle to articulate what they actually know how to do.

AI can help uncover skills embedded in day-to-day work. Think: change management, cross-functional collaboration, operational improvement, stakeholder communication, workforce development, process optimization, and team leadership

Prompt:

3. Turn operational work into measurable skills and outcomes

Many resumes still rely on vague statements like “led strategic initiatives” or “managed teams,” but skills-based hiring places far more emphasis on evidence. The clearer your outcomes are, the easier it becomes for employers to understand the real-world application of your skills.

AI can help surface the measurable outcomes and workforce skills employers actually care about, like revenue growth, retention improvements, cost savings, process efficiency, customer growth, team scaling, digital transformation, and workflow optimization.

Prompt:

4. Use AI to uncover blind spots in your skills story

One of the smartest ways to use AI is as a strategic interviewer. Instead of immediately asking it to rewrite your resume, ask it to challenge you.

Have it identified:

• missing accomplishments

• unclear metrics

• underdeveloped skills

• leadership gaps

• vague language

• transferable skills you may be overlooking

This process often surfaces valuable capabilities professionals forget to include because they’ve normalized their own expertise over time.

Prompt:

5. Tailor your skills narrative to the role

A skills-based resume should shift depending on the opportunity.

A VP of Operations role may prioritize operational scaling and process optimization, while a workforce development role may emphasize stakeholder engagement, transformation, and communication.

Once you have a strong base resume, use AI to prioritize relevant competencies, reorganize accomplishments, align with industry terminology, and emphasize skills tied to the role.

Avoid keyword stuffing or copying job descriptions word-for-word. Recruiters spot that immediately.

The goal is alignment while still sounding credible and human.

Prompt:

6. Focus on proof, not polish

AI can make almost anyone sound impressive now.

That’s exactly why proof matters more than ever in a skills-based economy.

Hiring teams are increasingly focused on demonstrated capabilities, measurable outcomes, and verifiable learning. That shift is one reason digital credentials, verified learning, and Learning and Employment Records (LERs) are becoming more important across workforce conversations.

A polished summary means very little without evidence to back it up. The strongest candidates aren’t using AI to manufacture credibility. They’re using it to communicate their real skills with more clarity, specificity, and confidence.

Prompt:

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BY THE NUMBERS

2026 is a big year for workforce funding

💡 More than $3.2 billion in public workforce funding has already been announced, preserved, or activated in 2026 alone across apprenticeship expansion, WIOA funding, and community college workforce initiatives — before Workforce Pell even launches.

 Source: The Conference Board - Dec 2025 

KNOWLEDGE

What to read, watch, and listen

📚 Read: The Talent Intelligence Gap: A Three-Sided Problem by Sean Murphy

This piece explores the growing disconnect among employers, workers, and the systems that try to measure talent. Sean Murphy lays out why better data alone won’t solve the issue—and why understanding skills, capability, and potential remains messier than most organizations want to admit.

📺 Watch: Managing Bots, Not People: The Shift in Workplace Hierarchy by WSJ Leadership Institute

Box CEO Aaron Levie discusses a future where knowledge workers oversee AI agents the same way managers oversee teams. The conversation raises fascinating questions about leadership, workplace structure, and what “management” could mean in an AI-enabled workforce.

🎧 Listen: Is the College Degree Still the Key to Success? from SHRM All Things Work

The college degree conversation keeps evolving. This episode digs into how employers are weighing degrees against skills, experience, and alternative pathways—and why the answer is becoming more nuanced than a simple yes-or-no.

FOR FUN’SIES

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