Her Next Chapters

73. "If I knew then what I know now" - ChatGPT interviews me about career advice

• Christina Kohl

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This week, I’m doing something a little different—I let ChatGPT interview me! The topic: “If I Knew Then What I Know Now”—advice career returners and career changers wish they had known earlier.

In this unique episode, I hand the “mic” to ChatGPT (yes, really!) to ask me the big questions about my 13-year journey from stay-at-home mom back to HR professional—and the strategies that finally broke through my job search plateaus.

We cover:
 ✅ Mindset & Confidence
 ✅ Resume & Job Search Strategy
 ✅ Networking & Interviewing
 ✅ Negotiation & Career Growth
 ✅ Work-Life Balance & Adjusting Back to Work

One of my biggest shifts? Realizing my unpaid experience had value. Strategic volunteering rebuilt my confidence, and my Strengths-First Resume flipped the script—highlighting skills first instead of gaps. This simple change transformed my results (and you can grab the template in the show notes! ⤵️).

I also learned to stop justifying my career break in interviews—because employers don’t need your life story, they need to know you can do the job. Now, I help my clients interview with confidence.

Ready to take the next step? Download my resume template and connect with me on LinkedIn. Your next chapter is waiting!

Grab the Free Strengths-First Resume Template - it's perfect for anyone in career transitions, whether with a long career gap, a career pivot, or just ready for a change.
Want to chat about your career goals? Schedule a free call HERE.
Send me an email ---> christina@hernextchapters.com
Connect with me on LinkedIn ---> www.linkedin.com/in/kohlchristina





Christina Kohl:

Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, Christina Kohl. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show, we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started. Hi, friends, and welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapters.

Christina Kohl:

This week I'm doing something a little bit different. I thought it'd be fun to have ChatGPT interview me, so the topic is "if I knew then what I know now advice that career returners and career changers wish they had known earlier. And so I asked ChatGPT to ask me questions, and these are the questions and my answers. So it starts off with mindset and confidence what limiting beliefs held you back the most in your job search and what would you say to your past self? Now, I love this question because there were so many limiting beliefs. I had been out of the workforce for well over a decade when I was ready to dip my toe back in and start looking for jobs and I was worried that it was too long of a break and that I would have to start over, and I was worried I wouldn't even get hired. So that was of a break and that I would have to start over and I was worried I wouldn't even get hired. So that was definitely a limiting belief that held me back, that I was unhirable. And what I would say to myself now is that all of those skills and knowledge and experience that I had from my early career didn't go anywhere. They were all still within me and I wasn't starting over. I was starting based on the experience that I had. The other thing is that the experience that I gained during my time out of the workforce was also valuable experience, and so that was definitely a limiting belief of mine was that, well, I'm just a mom and I was discounting all of the life experience that I had during that decade plus season of life. And those are definitely limiting beliefs and what I would say to my past self now and, honestly, what I say to my clients now is your life experience is experience, it is valuable, and that unpaid experience is experience it is valuable and that unpaid experience is experience. So just because you've been out of the paid workforce doesn't mean that you haven't been adding to your knowledge base and your skillset during this time.

Christina Kohl:

And so then the next question that chat GPT asked me is how did you navigate the self-doubt that came with a career gap? That's a good one because, honestly, it took me two years. It was kind of hot and cold. I dipped my toe in a little bit and search and then I'd get some rejection whether that was just being ghosted, not getting any interviews, even when I spent hours customizing my resume, customizing a cover letter and making it absolutely perfect and showing how I was a great candidate, and then to hear nothing, not even a rejection. It was brutal. And how did I navigate it? I was just busy with family life and stopped the job search for a while, but after a while I really needed and wanted to work. My kids were getting older, college was on the horizon and I knew at some point they were all going to be away in college and I was going to be a stay-at-home mom to the dog and I wanted more for myself than that. So that was kind of how I kept going was knowing that I wanted more for my life. And then the next question is was there a moment when you realized you were actually qualified?

Christina Kohl:

What triggered that mindset shift and you're probably going to hear me say this a lot today, but it was volunteering, strategic volunteering. So I used to volunteer when the kids were little. I would volunteer at their school, you know, doing reading time. You know, in the classroom I didn't really do math but I certainly did reading time. Or maybe, you know, with the PTA, I volunteered there too, you know, helping with the book fair or the science fair, things like that. But when I really had that mindset shift is when I was doing more strategic volunteering. For instance, I networked my way onto the hiring committee for our next school principal at the elementary school. And when I was doing that, when I was on the committee, I taught everyone else there's 10 people, mostly staff, a couple of their parents and I taught them about behavioral interviewing and how to develop the questions based on what we needed and wanted in our next leader. I taught all of them that and helped develop the questions and guided them through the interview process. And it had been, oh goodness, at least 10 years probably longer since I myself had been in that role as a professional of interviewing someone. But when I was able to lead that team of 10 other people through that process, it's like I am qualified and that was a mindset shift for me, doing that work on a volunteer basis, and so I will talk about that until I'm blue in the face.

Christina Kohl:

Strategic volunteering If you are looking to make a career change whether it's from being a stay-at-home mom or pivoting into something new volunteer and prove to yourself and others that you are capable of doing the thing that you want to do. Next and then the next question how did you handle rejection early in your job search and what would you do differently now? Well, like I said, I didn't handle the rejection very well because I just gave up. That was how I handled it. Well, I'm not going to get hired, oh well, I guess I'll just keep being a stay-at-home mom. That was how I handled it. Well, I'm not going to get hired, oh well, I guess I'll just keep being a stay-at-home mom. That was how I handled it early in the job search and what would I do differently now? I would, I guess, question myself was I really ready? Because I think maybe I wasn't really ready in that early part of the job search, because once I knew I was really ready, I started talking about it more and I was all in. I mean, I'm like this is it, I am going to get a job, no matter what it takes. I'm getting a job. And I didn't really have that level of commitment early on, and I think it was partially because my oldest was in high school that it made it more real the financial impact of me working or not working. In that case, what that was going to look like when sending three kids to college just became very real as my oldest was in 10th grade and it just really settled in that I was committed. So the initial early rejections caused me to give up and what I would do differently now is making sure that I was actually ready to commit to the job search. So okay.

Christina Kohl:

Next question what's one thing you wasted too much time on in your job search? So applying online and that's a very common thing. I think a lot of people do that. It feels like you're doing something productive, you're hey, I applied for 10 jobs this week Awesome. But if you're not customizing and I was customizing but I wasn't networking so I wasted too much time just applying, cold applying, rather than developing my network and talking to people and getting those introductions, which is what the next question is ironically, what's one thing you didn't do early enough that made a huge difference later? Exactly that the strategic volunteering. So the more I did that, the more my confidence grew, the more my network grew and the more introductions started to happen, because I was strategically volunteering and making it a point to be talking to people about my job search and networking. And let's see the next question If you could go back, how would you rewrite your resume sooner to better showcase your value?

Christina Kohl:

Well, if you've been following me for any length of time, you might already guessed at this question are most current on top, and then go backwards in history and when the first thing you see is volunteer or stay-at-home mom, it's not very compelling. And so I created a hybrid model, which are now called the Strengths First Resume, where it allowed me to pull all of my really good highlights of experience that were relevant to the job I was applying for onto page one. So they didn't see the career break right away. They would see all of the relevant things skills and accomplishments that were important were all on page one. And then page two showed the context, which included the career break. So by then they were already intrigued and going, hmm, this person has a lot to offer. So that's how I did rewrite my resume. It did take me a while to get there, but that is now what I use in my coaching.

Christina Kohl:

Like I said, I call it the strengths first resume template and it's always in the show notes. So if you want to grab a copy for yourself, you can download it. It's very instructional and it has a format that you can just cut and paste your own things into. So that is exactly how I would go back to rewrite my resume sooner. And how important this is. The next question how important was tailoring your resume? What mistakes did you make before figuring that out? So the tailoring I did that from the beginning. So, you guys, my career was in human resources and so I knew how important it was to tailor my resume. So that wasn't where I was struggling. Where I was struggling was that career break was the first thing people were seeing. So once I switched to the strengths first resume format, that's where things started happening a lot easier.

Christina Kohl:

And let's see it's number nine. What's one networking tip you wish you had known earlier? There's so many actually, I don't think I can land on one, but here's a fundamental one. Even when it's been years, if you remember someone, odds are they're going to remember you as well. And here's the thing they're not going to remember you as the mom in the carpool pickup lane with your hair up and a messy bun and your yoga pants. They don't know you as that person, someone that you used to work with before you took a career break. Or, if you haven't, maybe you're listening and you're like, yeah, christine, I haven't been on career break, but I'm ready for a change. Going back to your previous colleagues, whether it's been five years, 10 years, even 15 years, if you remember them, they remember you, and they remember you as the professional that they used to work alongside. And so I think that's a really important thing, that it feels a little weird to be reaching out to someone you haven't talked to in over a decade, and so you do want to do that with with grace. You don't want to just be like hey, it's me, how have you been? Do you have a job that you could hire before? You want to reach out with curiosity about them. It's nice to connect how have you been? And then they're going to turn around and ask you those questions too, and then you can kind of give them an update of what's going on. So, anyway, that's one networking tip that I wish I'd known earlier. If I remember them, they remember me.

Christina Kohl:

And the next question how did networking actually play a role in landing your job? The job that I actually got after being a stay-at-home mom for 13 years was at a health foundation. The executive director of the health department where I used to work knew people at the employer that I was looking at and I knew that he knew people because I could tell by looking at LinkedIn and I just let him know. Hey, chris, just excited, I want to give you an update. I have an interview coming up at the Colorado Health Foundation and immediately he was like I didn't ask him, but immediately he came back and said who are you interviewing with? I know people there and I gave him the names. He didn't know them directly. He doesn't necessarily work with the HR teams of other organizations. But he reached out on my behalf and gave a glowing recommendation in advance of my interview. So did that get me the job? I still had to show up and interview and do well in the interview. So I don't think that by itself got me the job, but it certainly didn't hurt. It absolutely probably helped. So if you have another leader in your field, in your community vouching for someone, that's a really good sign, so I'm sure it helped them make that decision and have confidence in hiring me.

Christina Kohl:

Okay, number 11. The hard part about this guest interview thing here is that the machine isn't actually asking me the questions. I have to do all the talking, but anyway I'll keep going. So, number 11, was there a moment in an interview where you realized you had been preparing wrong? And yes, there was, and I think I've shared this before, but it's worth sharing again. So back to that self-doubt and I think a lot of people, especially those with career breaks, have this where you feel like you have to justify why you were on a career break.

Christina Kohl:

So the moment, like the specific moment where I knew I had made a mistake I was interviewing, sitting across the table from the CEO of a company and he had asked me about my background and I started talking about being on career break and coming back and explaining to the CEO why I was on career break and while my son well, my son has had a lot of surgeries. He was born with a cleft lip and palate. He's had 13 surgeries and so it didn't make a lot of sense for me to be working because of all of his medical care and you know I would be out on FMLA all the time. So now he's at the point where you know his next surgeries are several years away. So we're all stable and good and I'm excited to work.

Christina Kohl:

So here's the thing that moment that happened, he sat back in his chair and he looked at me and he said I'm sorry that happened to you. And I was just stunned. I was like what I didn't want? His sympathy, that's not what I wanted. But I realized he didn't really, not that he didn't care, but the reason that why I was on career break was irrelevant to him. He needed to hire someone to do contract recruiting for him. I had networked my way into it. I had a great first round, first and second round interview. My application was solid. Again, I had networked my way in, so I had a great recommendation and he just needed to know could I do the job? It didn't matter why. He already knew I was out of the workforce for 13 years. He didn't care why.

Christina Kohl:

And for me to take the time to explain it, to justify it, this is why you don't understand I had to be out. I had a good reason it to justify it. This is why you don't understand I had to be out. I had a good reason. It just it diminished my candidacy. And that's when I realized I'd been answering that question wrong. So actually, that leads me right into the next question that chat TPT is asking me what's one interview answer you struggled with and how would you coach someone to answer it now?

Christina Kohl:

So it's that question Tell me about yourself, or tell me about your, your career history, something like that? Um, and instead of answering it and explaining and justifying why you were out of the workforcecare was so expensive it was more expensive than my paycheck. No, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. So when it comes to that part, you would just say I have 10 years of experience in human resources. I took a career break while raising my family, and I'm so excited to get back into the workforce and back into human resources again. I'm studying for the SPHR to make sure my skills are up to date and I especially love recruiting and interviewing and onboarding employees and I'm really excited to be able to do that again. So do you see the difference? That part about being home, it was what? Five or six words, any justification is not needed, because all that does is weakens your confidence in the moment, and that's not what you want. And you don't want to deny that you are on a break. They know it If they're interviewing you. They've already seen your career path, and so that's a question, an interview question that I struggled with, or an answer that I struggled with and a better way to answer it.

Christina Kohl:

Okay, so the next section is on negotiation and career growth. So question 13, did you negotiate your first offer? Why or why not? What would you do differently now? So here's the thing I actually did negotiate my first offer when I came back to work and you guys, it's the first time I ever negotiated an offer, as I think about it. In my earlier career, before I took a break, I just said yes when I was offered money and never negotiated. But when I came back to work I actually did negotiate and I just simply asked is there any room for negotiation? And my future boss said, well, what are you thinking? And I gave out a different number, which is about five percent more, and she's like, yeah, we could do that. It was that simple and that has dividends down the road, right, because your next raise is based off of that higher amount. So I did take the initiative to do it, to ask for more money, and I'm glad that I did. What would I do differently now in that situation? I think I would do it with more confidence because I was nervous. But that was just a simple question and it's a very effective question Is there room to negotiate?

Christina Kohl:

And then number 14, when did you realize you could and should aim for more in your career? So for me personally, I still had three relatively young kids at home in elementary school, middle school and high school. Nobody was driving yet. Flexibility was most important to me in my return to work, and so I went for a part-time role, and it was lower level than where I had left, but that certainly helped me regain my confidence being back in the workforce. But that certainly helped me regain my confidence, being back in the workforce, being part of a team of others that I could look to and learn from as things change over 13 years. But when my coworker left and it opened up a manager level position and immediately I'm like I want in. I raised my hand, consider me. And they did. And at that point it was full-time and in-person and a two-hour commute and all of that. But at that point my kids had started driving, at least the oldest, and so I had a little more flexibility on the home front. And we did it on a trial basis, for I think we did about two months with me stepping in, and it was during an open enrollment season. So I owned the whole thing and excelled at it, and they offered me the job on a full-time basis, and so that was really rewarding.

Christina Kohl:

And then let's see number question 15, what advice would you give to someone who is hesitant about going for a higher level role? Well, I guess, if that's that's a hard one to answer because there's just so many variables, um, I would. If it's you returning to work, I would want to know, like have you, how long has your gap been? Um, are you up to date on the legal environment, the technology environment, all of that, making sure that kind of that baseline is there so that you and your employer have confidence? But as far as just moving from one role to another, know that pretty much everyone who takes on a new role feels like an imposter when they first step into it. And so when you are feeling inadequate, know that that's a normal feeling and that you're going to grow in the role. And then, if you stay in a role that has become mundane and you're not being challenged anymore, then that's really a sign that it's time to stretch and learn and grow and do something new, and to know it might be a little uncomfortable. And here's the thing men versus women. When they apply for a job, men might apply for something that they only meet like 30% of the requirements, whereas women they only apply if they meet like 90 to 100% of the requirements, which doesn't really mean you're getting a promotion or going for a higher level role. I encourage people to aim for maybe 65 to 70% that you already have everything, knowing that the rest is growth opportunity for you. Okay, so enough on that one, without having a detailed conversation with someone that's, you know, had specifics.

Christina Kohl:

So the next category and last category work-life balance and adjusting back to work. So question 16, what was the hardest part about transitioning back to work and this might be true of whether it's back to work or back to an office? You guys, I was tired as in sleepy tired, thankfully, my first day. My boss and my peer, my coworker they had a meeting offsite and so they had me come in at noon. I think I worked like one to five that first day and again, it was a part-time role, so it was just 20 to 25 hours a week. And I was so tired after that first day of and I remember my mom when I was a kid, when she went back to work I was 13 when she went back to work and her coming home being tired, I'm like, well, how could you be tired? You just sat at a chair and at a desk all day. It's a different kind of tired, right, a different kind of tired right. And then the other thing that was really hard.

Christina Kohl:

So week one was great, kind of getting the feel of it, getting dressed up and driving, commuting and all that, and getting to settle into my new office space and meeting everybody. And then, so that was week one, week two, my husband, john, had a last minute out of country trip. He wasn't just on a business trip, he was in England and it was just me and the three kids, with different schools, no buses, so I had to juggle all of that and I did, and I managed to, but that was a bit challenging. And then, week three, all three kids came down with a stomach virus, so vomiting, nausea, fever, all of it, all three of them, and so I took off a day and then my husband had to take off the next day and he was great about it, but it's not something he had to think about for over a decade, because anyone who was sick, I just took care of it. So that was definitely a transition and something I encourage people who are making that type of transition to be thinking about, because it will happen.

Christina Kohl:

Let's see question 17. If you could go back, how would you set better boundaries in your first job after your career break? You know, for me the boundaries were pretty well set by choosing a part-time job that was flexible. They let me set my hours with a requirement of. I think I had to be there on a Tuesday. There were certain days of the week that they really needed me there, of the week that they really needed me there, but otherwise I was able to set my own schedule and I chose to work two full days, so Monday, tuesday and then half day Wednesday. That was a boundary that I set for myself so that we only had two days when I was gone for the whole day and then that third day I was home before the kids got home. So it was really only a couple days that we didn't have anybody at home and that worked really well for me and my family. And I know not everyone's going to find a professional level job. That's part-time. I was able to and I sought that out and that worked really well for us, sought that out and that worked really well for us. So that is my interview with ChatGPT about my return to work, a little longer than I planned on. We'll probably be able to edit some of this, but I hope that was helpful and insightful for you listening and if you are returning to work or if you're having a change pivoting you know, pivoting from one job to another or one industry, one profession that strengths.

Christina Kohl:

First resume that I mentioned, that has come in handy for myself, for my clients and even after my career break. So I had been back at work for five years. As I mentioned earlier, I was part-time initially and then I promoted into the manager role and when I was ready to up-level I applied for a total of four jobs in about a three-month period. One of those ghosted me. The other three I interviewed all the way to the finalist round and obviously I got an offer and accepted the position and that was with that strengths first resume format and at that point my career break was a non-issue. Right, I'd been back for five years. I had already proven myself back in the workforce. There wasn't this idea of a risk or taking a chance on someone because they'd been out of practice. So it's a resume format that works for pretty much all situations. So if you want to get your hands on it and you haven't already, it's in the show notes. There's a link there where you can sign up to get a copy of it and make it your own, all right? Well, that's my story and my interview with ChatGPT about my return to work.

Christina Kohl:

I hope that you found it insightful and if you ever have questions or topics that you would love for me to address on the show. Please just let me know. Send me an email. It's Christina at hernextchapterscom, and that is it for this week. Have a great week and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and, if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own. Connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember your story is uniquely your own, and your next chapters are ready to begin.