Every job search carries a story. Behind every resume, application, or unanswered email is a person navigating hope, uncertainty, and the daily challenge of staying resilient. Too often those stories remain invisible, reduced to statistics about unemployment or the labor market.

I know this because I am in the middle of that process myself. I am searching for the right next role, sending applications, having conversations, and managing the long stretches of waiting in between. Along the way I have spoken with so many people who feel voiceless, people who feel like their experiences and struggles are not being seen or heard.

Artificial intelligence has transformed how organizations recruit, measure, and manage talent. Algorithms can scan résumés in seconds, predict technical proficiency, and even evaluate communication patterns. But as someone who has worked at the intersection of defense, technology, and customer experience, I have seen firsthand the skills that machines cannot capture. And often, those are the very qualities that determine success as you advance in your career.

AI thrives on structured data. It can evaluate whether someone meets baseline qualifications, how clearly they write, or whether they can code in a specific language. What it cannot reliably assess are the soft skills that come alive in ambiguous, human-driven situations. Machines can detect sentiment in text or tone, but they cannot fully grasp how a leader builds trust during moments of crisis. When I served as the first Customer Experience Officer for the Department of Defense, what mattered was not just launching digital tools but creating confidence among service members and civilians. That required empathy, presence, and listening, none of which could be measured in a dataset.

I recently stepped away from my role as the Department of Defense’s first Customer Experience Officer, and like many who have spent years in public service, I am now navigating what comes next. In conversations with hiring managers, recruiters, and executives, I have been asked a familiar set of questions. They often want to know how government experience translates into business outcomes, how I think about profit and loss, and how I approach growth when my recent DoD work has never been measured by quarterly earnings. If you are making a similar transition, these are some of the themes and lessons I have found useful. Hopefully, they will be helpful for you too.

America moved fast. It assumed fluency. It demanded adaptation.

My mother became a nanny. Not because it was easy, but because caring for children was the one skill she carried across oceans and borders. She couldn’t read or write English. Not because she wasn’t intelligent but because survival had never afforded her the time.

“All I knew,” she once told me, “was how to take care of kids. So I did that. And I prayed you’d have more.”

She folded laundry, warmed bottles, braided hair that was not her own. She did not complain. But she did watch. She paid attention to everything. She protected us in ways that no curriculum could ever teach.

Her life wasn’t measured in degrees or promotions. It was measured in the strength of her back and the tenderness of her hands.

As a child, my mother, Im, was traditionally beautiful in the way old songs remember women—graceful but grounded, her beauty a quiet kind that refused to beg for attention. She had high cheekbones like the curves of Kampot’s hills, a slender nose, and brows that framed a gaze too intense for someone so young. Her skin held the warmth of ripe tamarind, her hair thick and black as river silt, often knotted into braids by her full sister, only to be torn loose when she ran wild with the boys barefoot across the compound. Even then, there was something decisive in her—a girl forged not for decoration, but for endurance.