I’ve hosted resume workshops—career clinics, as I prefer to call them—for years, often at MBA and grad school fairs. The organizers love the transactional frame: “Resume Workshop.” But I’ve learned to bend the moment into something more alive. I tell participants: “A resume is a tool. What do you want this tool to do for you right now?” That simple reframe unlocks something. We go from formatting tips to existential inventory.
Sometimes there's a clear ask—targeting a specific industry, role, or opportunity. But often, it’s vaguer. A general unease, a premonition of layoffs, a stirring restlessness. And occasionally, someone comes with a blank request: “I just want a review.” That’s when I push, gently but firmly. “If I don’t know how I can help you, I probably won’t.” Sometimes, I’ll add: “There are people lined up behind you whom I probably can.”
That nudge usually surfaces the real reason. It’s never just a review. There’s a fear, a hope, a recalibration. A desire not yet admitted even to themselves.
This experience keeps looping back in my mind as a model for good advising. It isn’t about answers. It’s about asking: What problem are you trying to solve? What do you want the tool (resume, blurb, logline, tagline, pitch…) or even the coach, process, etc. to do?
It echoes a broader lesson: don’t reach for the solution before defining the problem. And don’t accept surface-level reasons when something deeper wants to be named.
This also connects to my thinking around Toolishness —the mindset of instrumentalism, of seeing everything as a tool, and sometimes forgetting to ask what deeper intention animates the use. Am I designing tools for people who haven’t figured out what they want to build? And if so, can I help them name the desire before handing them a hammer?