- AI for Busy Parents
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- I got laid off. Then I used AI to land 3 interviews in one week.
I got laid off. Then I used AI to land 3 interviews in one week.
This is what I wish I'd known sooner.
It was a Monday morning when I found out. No warning. No "we're going through restructuring." Just a brief 10 min call with 150 people: your positions are being eliminated.
The panic set in immediately. Rent. Kids. Insurance. Bills. All the things that don't pause when your job does.
I opened my old resume that night - the one I hadn't updated in five years. Generic. Forgettable. The kind that gets swallowed by applicant tracking systems and never sees human eyes.
But here's what made this worse: I watched my coworkers struggle with the same thing. Some of them sent out 20+ applications with zero interviews. I started getting callbacks after my third tailored application.
The difference wasn't my experience. We all had similar backgrounds. The difference was how I was presenting it.
What AI Actually Said
I opened ChatGPT and did something different. Instead of asking it to "rewrite my resume," I gave it real context:
"I was recently laid off from a marketing role. I have 6 years of experience in [specific areas]. I'm applying for this job [paste job description] and here is my resume [paste resume]. Ask me detailed questions about my experience so you can tailor my resume to match the exact keywords and skills they're looking for. Then create a version that will get past their ATS system."
ChatGPT didn't just swap words around. It asked me questions I'd never thought to answer:
What specific metrics did you improve?
How does your experience directly solve their pain points?
Which of your skills are they desperately searching for?
Each answer helped me craft a resume that spoke their language, not mine.
And once I had a good foundation, I used this prompt to make small tweaks to each resume to align with each job:
“Here’s a job description I’m applying to: [paste job]. And here’s my resume: [paste text]. Can you rewrite my resume to match this role more closely — using keywords and phrasing that will help me get past the ATS but still sound like me?”
The results came quickly. Three interviews in the first week of using this approach. My coworkers started asking what I was doing differently.
But here's the honest part: the ups and downs are brutal. Getting excited about a role, making it through interviews, then getting that rejection email - and then having to immediately shift into "happy parent mode" with my kids. Finding two hours a day with zero distractions to actually apply with intention feels impossible some weeks.
This isn't just about landing interviews. It's about doing it while managing the emotional roller coaster and the constant pull of parenting.
🛠️ Bonus Resource: Job Boards for Parents
If you’re on the hunt for something more flexible, family-friendly, or remote — I’ve got you. Here are two job boards specifically built with parents in mind:
The Mom Project → https://themomproject.com
Jobs and community for women and caregivers re-entering the workforce, changing careers, or pivoting to part-time or contract work.Dadseeker → https://www.dadseeker.com
A growing platform focused on helping dads find roles that respect work-life balance and family-first values.
You deserve work that fits your life — not the other way around.
