Utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a Career Transition

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Chat Bots are increasingly being used by recruiters and hiring managers to save time and costs and now job seekers are seeing the benefit of using it to support aspects of their job search including CV and interview preparation.

This article highlights 4 ways to utilise AI during a career transition and considers the pros and cons to be aware of.

There are so many AI Chat Bots available to use; the easiest way to look for one to suit your needs is to run an internet search. The most popular ones used are ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. Most AI Chat Bots are free to use, however you might find that they restrict the number of searches you can run to encourage you to subscribe. Once you have set up an account the more you use it the more familiar you will become with how it works and the results it can yield.

Support with Content Creation

A lot of job seekers suffer from ‘Blank Page Syndrome’ or ‘Writers Block’ and struggle with where to start when writing their CV, cover letters or updating their LinkedIn profiles.

Pros - AI Chat Bots can be used for inspiration when putting together content for your job search. For example, you can copy and paste a specific job description with a command ‘Write me a cover letter based on this job description’ and it will create one for you. This is ideal if you need a starting point for the baseline of a cover letter if you are unsure of the format or what to include. You could even take some existing content in your CV and ask it to ‘Make this achievement more concise’ if you want to ensure your examples are more to the point.

Cons - Hiring managers and recruiters receive hundreds of applications and are likely to receive similar applications if all job seekers use AI for content creation. So, make sure any content the AI Chat Bot creates for you is tailored it to each application. It needs to include your own skills and achievements that you have considered against the job description to differentiate your application from others. You will also need to be confident to talk through your CV and cover letter, so if it isn’t written completely by you or if it uses words that aren’t in your vocabulary, you may get caught out!

Summarising Information

Online job searching is one of the quickest ways of looking for new jobs but you may find yourself aimlessly scrolling and looking at hundreds of job advertisements and get lost in the detail.

Pros - AI Chat Bots will allow you to extract information. You can copy and paste a job specification with a command such as ‘Summarise this job description’ and it will highlight the key features of the role. As a starting point this will allow you to consider the key aspects of the job specification when it comes to tailoring your application or preparing for an interview.

Cons - Remember, it isn’t the hiring manager responding to you, it is a robot making predictions, so you will still need to fully understand the job description and tailor your response accordingly. If you have held a similar role before, re-read through the job specification to clarify your understanding and to determine what you consider to be the main aspects of the job. If you are still unsure, ask someone else for their opinion. If you rely on the AI Chat Bot itself, you may find yourself not being shortlisted.

Answering Questions

Similar to a search engine, typing a question into an AI Chat Bot will give you an instant response. However, AI Chat Bots will converse with you and allow you to ask to follow up questions.

Pros - You can ask the AI Chat Bot questions such as ‘What are the most popular interview questions for a Project Manager’ or copy and paste the job description into the chat bot and ask it to ‘Predict interview questions for this job’ The interview questions provided can give you an initial idea of what you may be asked so you can start to consider your responses.

Cons - An AI Chat Bot won’t be able to predict exact interviews questions or correctly advise you the style or format of interview you are likely to experience. You will need to research the company further and use the job description to predict the questions you are likely to be asked.

Conducting Research

AI can also be helpful for initiating company research ahead of an interview too. For example, using a command like ‘What does [company] do? and then with a follow up question ‘Write a SWOT analysis for [company name]’ may provide you with some valuable insights.

However, keep in mind that most AI doesn't provide real-time responses, so it's important to verify any information it provides and undertake additional research that the AI may not have obtained.

Final Thoughts

As the use of AI is on the rise, we are expecting recruiters, hiring managers and even applicant tracking software to detect if applications are genuine or created by AI. AI detectors indicate how much content has been created by a human or AI. It may be helpful to run any content you create through a detector like scribbr.com to understand how it will be interpreted by a machine or human. Finally, avoid adding personal information or sensitive data into AI systems, as you may not be aware of how that information will be used.