What if AI is the life coach you’ve been looking for?

On August 27th, 2025, The Gallery Seoul kicked off a new expat season with an inspiring talk by Christina Ahn, Executive Recruiter and Partner at Korn Ferry.

Her goal was to get us thinking about our next career moves and to discover the many tools available to us — even from the safety of your kitchen counter. Here’s what I learned.

The expat setup: A staccato career path

In most expat families - like my own - one partner holds the job that brings the family abroad, while the other follows and adapts to each new posting. Naturally, this often creates a more fragmented career for the trailing spouse — filled with pauses, freelancing, and project-based work.

When the children are small, “project manager of the household” may be the most demanding job in the world. But as the kids grow and you settle into new surroundings, the question of career inevitably returns. For me I felt this immediately even as this is our first posting. 

This reality brings both panic and relief — a strange mix of acknowledging your privilege yet also feeling stuck, capable yet somehow behind. However, an important key take away from Christina’s talk is that you are in charge of moving past the barriers you face - and it is doable if you want (and dare). 

Step One: Identify the barriers

The barriers are definitely a double edged sword: 

• The competence gap: Your CV will look a bit more weird. There are gaps, there are volunteer work and if you want to take a chance to pivot there might be an actual lack of skills for your new dream role.

  
  

• The personal barrier: Fear and self-doubt is often keeping you from putting yourself forward. This is of course a general thing, and let’s be honest, particularly for the female candidates among us. Further being benched for a while messes with your head. After 3 months I was unsure if I ever actually contributed to a workplace.

  
  

Each requires a different strategy — but the interesting thing is that AI can help with both by offering clarity when the big picture feels impossible to see.

Minding the gap: Rebuilding your career path

With a CV that is anything but linear it can seem hard to find your path. However, creating the necessary stepping stone is within your reach even when a classic full-time job is not: 

• Volunteering or interning in roles that build the skills you want — giving you concrete experience to put on paper and potentially references to add to an application.

  
  

• Keep your skills fresh through courses, certifications, and keeping up with tech and industry news. We have a lot of time so start reading, getting degrees and other things that makes you interesting to talk to and might give you ideas.

  
  

• Starting your own business — even with just a business card, it reframes your own identity and fills out the gaps on your resume. This was very specific advice from Christina and while it to me seemed almost silly just to open a company for looks, I do get the point of closing the CV gap with an entrepreneur title. However, see if you can find the sweet spot where this firm could have some activity - perhaps in combination with the above? Or other activities like blogging forcing yourself to do some work and putting yourself out there.

  
  

Getting out of your head: Overcoming self-Doubt

However for many of us, the real barrier is in reality not skills but confidence.

Without the affirmations that come naturally in a traditional workplace, self-doubt creeps in.

The antidote? Learn to articulate the skills you’ve gained. A global mindset, adaptability, and cross-cultural experience are rare and valuable and many in the room had more than 10 years of global experience.

Few people can say they’ve lived and thrived in five different countries. That is a story worth telling and an actual skill. Yet for me articulating just that is so hard. 

This got me thinking of previous speaker Steven McKinney. He is also executive recruiter and spoke at The Gallery last year. He introduced the idea of finding your “thread of success.” This framework helps you identify your unique story and it seems relevant to connect the two talks on this journey: You can read more about it here.

Enter AI: Your always-on career coach

So what to do? None of this is easy to do alone. That’s why coaches and recruiters exist.

But not everyone has access to a personal coach — and this is where AI becomes a powerful tool. Christina herself uses it daily and encourages us to do the same.

Personally I have started to play with it and it really is a powerful way to get out of your head.

Of course, AI can polish your CV — but that’s the baseline now.

The real value lies in what comes next. By pairing your CV with a future job description, AI can:

• Run a gap analysis: What skills are you missing for this role?

  
  

• Act as a career coach: How can you close those gaps?

  
  

• Take the recruiter’s perspective: Where would your CV raise red flags?

  
  

• Help you show your value: How could your skills contribute on day one — and long term?

  
  

Or, by feeding AI your CV plus personal details, you can ask it to:

• Identify your thread of success: What recurring strengths or themes define your journey? Remember to include your travelling, what were the hardest times in your many moves and how did you overcome them? Did you manage to keep active and engaged somehow still? Maybe your skill is to find possibilities in everything;

  
  

• Build a new narrative: How to reframe detours and pauses as learning opportunities. AI can be incredibly flattering and maybe overboard but try and give it taste. What if you started talking about yourself in this way?

  
  

• Rethink your options: Where else could your skills apply — across industries or functions? This will widen the search. Was your industry important or was the function your real skill? Or opposite is your industry knowledge deep enough that you could contribute in new functions. These might be relevant stepping stones as well to pivot.

  
  

AI gives you a new language to describe yourself — and a new lens to see your own potential. And unlike talking to a recruiter, you can be brutally honest without fear of judgment.

Does using AI make you an imposter?

Absolutely not. In fact, Christina was very clear; it would be odd not to use AI at this point.

In fact understanding and feeling comfortable around AI is today a required skill, so why not use yourself as the ginnypig to start playing around with the different tools.

There is a particular add that keeps being pushed to me on Social Media saying something in the line of: “the kids are opening business using AI, what are you doing?” sponsored probably based on my age alone. But they are not wrong. For a long time I pushed this agenda aside as not something for me. This is no longer a viable strategy if I wish to be successful in future endeavors. 

For me AI is not impostering. It’s connecting the dots, reframing your narrative, and reminding yourself of your own potential. It gives you the confidence to start networking and making yourself visible again. At The Gallery, we often talk about “preparing for luck.” AI can help you do exactly that.

Authenticity matters more than ever

Simultaneously, authenticity becomes key. AI almost democratizes skills. Going forward we will all have very well articulated CV’s and as everything becomes more grey (or seemingly all of us more fabulous) your authenticity becomes the real differentiator. Christina explained that her work has already transformed. Technical skills are easier to evaluate and algorithms (and LinkedIn) help do that, so what matters most now is the personal and cultural fit.

New interview formats are emerging, and recruiters are paying closer attention to the whole person.

Companies are asking her to evaluate who this person is and why he or she is applying for this job. This is interesting because throughout all Gallery talks authenticity has also been the center of all our inspirational leaders. Knowing yourself and staying true to yourself (in good and bad) is key if you want to be a successful leader - of course this also goes when finding jobs. 

That’s why it’s vital to use AI without losing your own voice. Whoever the recruiter meets on paper must match the person who walks into the room.

Because in the end, a job isn’t just about skills. It’s about fit — skills and culture. You don’t want to be a starfish in a sandbox.

The gift of expat life is the chance to pause, reflect, and pivot. Think about what makes you happy, reimagine your ambitions, and if you don’t know where to start… start by asking ChatGPT.