Over the past several years, there has been a lot of speculation about how AI could impact the job market. Many people worry that AI could replace the need for human workers in certain roles. Writers, customer service representatives, assembly workers, and folks in many other professions fear they could be made obsolete.
But this isn’t necessarily true. Many positions, even those that use AI, will likely still rely on human talent. And what’s more, AI can help many applicants find more and better employment.
AI can even help job seekers avoid the most tedious parts of the job search process. Let’s look at some ways AI can actually help you get a better job.
1. Brainstorming Your Cover Letter and Resume
One especially powerful use for AI in the job search process is brainstorming and organizing written materials. AI is an amazing tool for generating outlines and drafts of resumes, cover letters, email inquiries and other written documents. Tell it what you need, and AI can quickly churn out several pages of helpful text.
For instance, some programs can generate a resume based on data you feed it about your qualifications and career history. Then you can edit the language to be more precise and personalized to your unique style. AI can also help you write short emails you might submit to an employer with your application materials.
If you need to write a cover letter, but you’re not sure how to structure the information, AI can help. Give it a job description and your qualifications, and it can write you a detailed outline or rough first draft.
Then, you can take the draft or outline and re-write all the text as your own. Never leave this last step out, though. AI writing can include errors, plagiarized information, or offensive material. Note that some employers also automatically flag and reject AI writing.
2. Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile
AI is brilliant for optimizing your LinkedIn profile to match with more jobs and get more hits from recruiters. You can use ChatGPT or other AI models to analyze your written
text and suggest improvements for your page. LinkedIn has also been rolling out its own onsite features to help users elevate their profiles and job history data.
One notable feature of LinkedIn’s native AI is that it generates summaries and headlines optimized for its search engine. This means an employer who’s truly a good fit is more likely to match with you or find you on the platform. LinkedIn’s AI also matches your tone of voice to be consistent with the rest of your profile. Your AI-written summary will sound just like you wrote it yourself.
Another great use of AI is in generating professional-looking headshots for your LinkedIn profile. To get these headshots, you upload a series of photos to an online headshot generator tool or app. Many are free or affordable, and they all generate multiple headshot options to choose from. Some programs only edit existing photos, but many actually create new pictures of “you.”
3. Prepping and Practicing for Interviews
Some people like to sit around messing with AI chatbots asking them all sorts of random questions. It can be a fun way to pass the day, trying to figure out just how much a chatbot knows. But conversing with AI isn’t just a way to aimlessly pass the time. It’s also an excellent tool for preparing for any upcoming job interviews you have.
To prep for a job interview, there are a number of ways you can take advantage of AI. One is to prompt it to list some questions your employer might ask during an interview. A bot like ChatGPT can easily prepare a list of any number of questions you could anticipate. It may also be able to look at your responses and help you figure out ways they could be improved.
More advanced AI can even help you simulate video interviews. A virtual interviewer can ask you questions which you answer through your laptop camera. AI can then analyze and evaluate your responses, word usage, body language, facial expressions and more. Some more sophisticated models can even generate increasingly difficult follow-up questions as they go.
Your Own Brain is Still Your Best Asset
Remember: Even if written material produced by an AI seems good enough to use, you should never submit it as-is. It’s likely to be very dry and lack the creativity you possess as a unique human being.
Rather than submitting AI-generated writing, use AI drafts and outlines as a guide. AI can help you figure out roughly what you want to convey, and then let you say it much better.