I keep using the term “brutal” to describe the reality of job searching in 2025. I wish there was a better way to explain the pain of navigating RIF notices and the realization that USAID experience doesn't translate well on corporate resumes. But here we are.
And many people are sending in applications. Hundreds of applications. Spending too much precious time and emotional capital on them, when so many will lead to inexcusable ghosting.
That's why I want to tell you about a tool that's actually built for people like us.
Not another generic AI resume writer that spits out corporate buzzwords, but something designed by someone who gets what we do.
HiringCoachAI was created by Rishan Mohamed, and after testing it extensively with Career Pivot subscribers, I'm convinced it's the most practical job search tool available for humanitarian professionals making career transitions.
This isn’t a paid advertisement. I didn’t receive anything from Rishan. He is just a really nice guy and I honestly believe that you should be using HiringCoachAI. I did and I loved it!
Bonus In-Person Events
Rishan is in DC thrugh mid-August. You can meet with him in-person and get personalized career advice and hands-on training in how to use HiringCoachAI.
The Problem We All Face
Let me be honest about something we don't talk about enough. When you've spent years managing a $50 million portfolio in South Sudan or coordinating emergency response across three countries, explaining that experience to a Silicon Valley recruiter feels impossible.
Your resume says "Program Officer" but what they need to understand is "scaled operations under extreme constraints while managing diverse stakeholder groups."
A Different Approach
Traditional AI tools are trained on corporate language that has nothing to do with our reality.
They don't understand that when you write "coordinated with government counterparts," you actually mean "navigated complex political dynamics while maintaining programmatic integrity." The nuance gets lost, and so does our value.
HiringCoachAI flips the entire process and understands you, and the development to corporate switch.
1. Start with the Job Ad
Instead of starting with your humanitarian background and trying to force-fit it into a corporate template, you begin with the specific job you want. This isn't just smart strategy, it's exactly how I've been telling Career Pivot subscribers to approach their search.
You upload the job posting for that program manager role at a tech nonprofit or that consultant position in the corporate world. The platform immediately pulls out the specific language, required competencies, and cultural signals embedded in that posting.
When the job ad mentions "cross-functional team leadership," HiringCoachAI knows that's different from "matrix management" or "stakeholder coordination," subtle distinctions that matter enormously in how you position your experience.
What makes this particularly valuable for our community is the platform's ability to store multiple job targets.
If you're like most job searchers, you're not just applying to one type of role. You might be looking at private foundation work, ESG consulting, and tech for good positions simultaneously.
Each career path calls for its own narrative, emphasizing the most relevant experiences while using the right words. HiringCoachAI helps define the differences that will become the foundation for the distinct narratives you tell with each application.
2. Smart and Fast Resume Tailoring
Here's where most AI tools fail us completely.
They either produce generic corporate-speak that sounds nothing like your actual experience, or they simply rewrite your accomplishments using buzzwords from the job posting (or worse: they make up accomplishments you never had in order to match those buzzwords).
HiringCoachAI does something more sophisticated.
For every bullet point on your resume, the platform generates three different rewrite options using the substance from your bullet combined with the language patterns from your target job description.
But, and this is crucial, you maintain complete control over which version to use and how to edit it further. As Rishan puts it, "We're not doing this for you, we're doing this with you."
This collaborative approach is essential when you're translating humanitarian experience.
The platform might suggest changing "managed emergency response logistics" to "orchestrated crisis management operations," but you can refine that to "led rapid-deployment logistics for crisis response," which better captures both the urgency and the operational complexity of what you actually did.
The result is a resume that speaks the hiring manager's language while preserving the substance and impact of your humanitarian career.
Your story remains yours, but it becomes accessible to people who have never worked in Juba or don’t understand what it means to pivot programming during a coup.
3. Cover Letters That Actually Connect
I've seen too many people struggle with cover letters that try to explain why Doctors Without Borders experience makes one qualified for a consulting role. The challenge isn't that the experience isn't relevant, because it absolutely is. The challenge is making that connection explicit and compelling.
HiringCoachAI analyzes the job posting to identify the five most critical competencies for the role.
With each competency, it selects three relevant examples from your resume, producing fifteen potential cover letter paragraphs. From these, it automatically chooses the top three to put into the cover letter, each highlighting a different skill and example to showcase your fit for the role.
You can still see all fifteen paragraphs and can swap in any that you prefer over the preselected ones. Then you can finetune the wording to capture the nuance that only you can provide.
So instead of writing something vague like "my international development experience has given me strong project management skills," you end up with specific statements like, "When I scaled malnutrition programming across four districts in Chad, increasing coverage by 300% while maintaining quality standards, I developed the same rapid deployment and stakeholder alignment capabilities your consulting team needs for client implementations."
The platform offers multiple writing style options for each section and explains why each choice fits different contexts. This educational component helps you understand not only what to write but also why certain framings resonate with private-sector hiring managers.
4. LinkedIn Optimization for Career Changers
Your LinkedIn profile is often the first impression recruiters have of you, but most humanitarian professionals treat it like an afterthought. We're used to networks where everyone understands what we do.
When you're pivoting sectors, your LinkedIn profile needs to work harder.
HiringCoachAI generates LinkedIn content suggestions based on your resume and target job descriptions across six different parts of your profile including your headline, summary, work experience, and skills section.
Again, it doesn’t overwrite your story; it offers ideas and language you can adapt.
For example, one of the key insights here is that your LinkedIn headline shouldn't just describe what you've done, it should signal what you want to do next. Instead of "Senior Program Manager at USAID," you might use "Global Operations Leader | Cross-Cultural Team Management | Crisis Response & Strategic Planning."
This is about leading with the competencies that transfer most directly to your target roles. The platform helps you identify which aspects of your experience to emphasize and how to describe them in ways that immediately communicate value to private sector employers.
5. Interview Prep That Prepares You
This is where HiringCoachAI really shines for our community.
Most interview prep focuses on practicing answers, but what humanitarian professionals really need is help structuring their stories for audiences who don't understand our context.
The platform doesn't give you scripts, it gives you outlines based on your actual resume and the specific job requirements. When you practice answering, "Tell me about a time you managed a difficult team situation," the tool pulls relevant experiences from your background and suggests how to structure your response, with emphasis on outcomes that matter to your target employer.
After you record your practice answer, HiringCoachAI transcribes what you said and provides detailed feedback on relevance, depth, use of concrete examples, plus several other categories.
This is the kind of feedback that helps you identify when you're using too much development jargon, not making the business case clearly enough, or including too many “umms”, exactly the kind of feedback you wish recruiters would give you but never do.
I particularly appreciate the "Key Takeaways" feature, which tells you what the interviewer probably heard. Sometimes we think we're being clear about impact, but we're actually focusing too much on process.
This feedback helps you adjust your storytelling to emphasize results and transferable skills.
6. The Confidence Factor to Interview Well
Let's talk about the confidence hit that comes with career transitions.
When you've been an expert in humanitarian programming and suddenly you're trying to prove you can succeed in tech or consulting, imposter syndrome hits hard. This is especially true nowadays where we’ve all heard so many no’s (or haven’t heard back anything at all).
HiringCoachAI includes a "Pep Talk" feature that generates personalized confidence boosters based on your actual accomplishments. This is a structured reminder of your concrete achievements, designed to counteract the voice in your head saying you're not qualified for private sector roles.
Before your next interview, you can have the platform generate a motivational script that reminds you why managing a $30 million emergency response program actually does qualify you for strategic consulting work.
Sometimes we need external validation of our own competencies, especially when we're operating outside our familiar professional circles.
7. Advanced Prompts for Deep Reflection
The platform also includes a curated library of ChatGPT prompts designed for serious career reflection.
These aren't the basic "tell me about your strengths" prompts floating around LinkedIn. They're sophisticated tools for identifying your most impressive accomplishments, articulating your values, and clarifying what you actually want from your next role.
For those of us coming from mission-driven careers, this kind of structured self-reflection is essential. We're used to defining success in terms of beneficiary impact, but private sector employers want to hear about operational efficiency, revenue generation, or market expansion.
These prompts help you identify where your humanitarian accomplishments translate into business value.
Why This Matters in 2025
The 2025 job market is brutal for everyone, but it's especially challenging for humanitarian professionals. Reduced demand, increased competition, and technological disruption are making career transitions more difficult than ever.
Traditional networking and job search strategies aren't enough anymore.
You need tools that help you compete effectively while preserving what makes your background valuable. HiringCoachAI gives you that competitive edge without forcing you to abandon your story or pretend your humanitarian experience doesn't matter.
The platform understands that your international crisis management experience actually is relevant to business operations.
Your cross-cultural communication skills actually do matter for global companies.
Your ability to deliver results with limited resources actually is exactly what startups need.
The challenge has always been making those connections explicit and compelling to employers who've never worked in our sector.
Declare Application Independence Now
The job market isn't getting easier. Federal budget cuts, organizational restructuring, and increased competition mean we all need to be more strategic about how we position ourselves.
HiringCoachAI gives you the structure and support to do that effectively, without sacrificing what makes your background unique and valuable.
It will also free you from the drudgery of rewriting your resume and cover letter by hand each time. Stop that foolishness.
If you're tired of feeling like your experience doesn't translate, or if you're struggling to get past initial screening calls, this tool can help you bridge that gap. It's not magic, but it's the most practical solution I've found for the specific challenges our community faces in today's job market.
Meet Rishan. Test HiringCoach AI Yourself
Rishan is in Washington, DC though mid-August doing hands-on HiringCoachAI trainings for job seekers. This is your chance to learn AI secrets and ask him questions directly.
July 23: HiringCoach Hands-On: Guided Tour of the Platform
A complete hands-on walkthrough of the HiringCoach platform in Arlington, VA from 9:30-11:30am. Sign up here.
July 26: Meet Rishan + Hang with Other Intl Dev Folks
Join Rishan and hang out with the community, zero agenda, just a place to be around other great humans of international development at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, from 2-4pm. Sign up here.
July 28: Fed 2 Tech Summit
This event is for humanitarian professioanls looking to explore the startup world. The location is revealed once you sign up, from 6-9pm. Sign up here
August 12: HiringCoach Career Summit
More info shortly, but it will be in the Dupont Circle area (get in touch if you can help with space). Sign-up to stay informed about the event.
1:1 Career Strategy Coffee Chats
Paid Career Pivot Subscribers can RSVP below for Career Strategy Coffee Chats with Rishan and his team to get unstuck in their career search.
They will go over your challenges and look for ways to improve your processes. This may involve HiringCoachAI or not. The goal is a better job search process for you - however that happens.
