Christopher Massie
AI Can Help You Job Search. But It Shouldn’t Job Search for You
AI has quickly become part of the job search conversation, and there are a lot of opinions about how much you should or shouldn’t be using it.
Some people avoid it completely. Others use it to write almost everything. The better approach is probably somewhere in the middle.
AI can save you time, help you organize your thoughts, research a role and prepare for an interview. But it shouldn’t replace your own judgement, experience or personality.
Because there is a big difference between using AI to help tell your story and letting AI create a story about you, and hiring managers can often tell the difference.
AI Is A Tool, Not The Job Seeker
AI works best when you give it a task to do, with prompts or a starting point.
Your experience. Your accomplishments. Your career goals. A job posting you’re interested in. Even a rough paragraph that doesn’t sound quite right yet. Then tell it what you want it to do, clean up this writing, compare these job descriptions and let me know if they would suit my experience, look up this company and tell me the name of the CEO and what the company vision statement is.
That doesn’t mean AI should decide whether you apply to a job or not. It is just giving you the information needed for you to make the decision.
Use AI To Strengthen Your Resume
This is probably one of the most important rules when using AI during a job search:
If you didn’t do it, don’t let AI put it on your resume. Let that sink in. read it again if you need to. AI is not a replacement for human experience, and should not be used to exaggerate your abilities.
AI has a tendency to make things sound more impressive. Sometimes, a little too impressive. Even unbelievable.
There’s nothing wrong with improving the way you describe an accomplishment. It becomes an issue when turning “helped with a project” becomes “led a company-wide initiative”.
Instead, give AI your real experience along with the job description.
Ask which accomplishments are most relevant to the position. Have it identify where you could include measurable results or help you make point easier to understand.
Then read everything it gives you. Take a break, and read it again.
Does it still sound like you? Is every statement accurate? Could you comfortably explain every bullet point if an interviewer asked you about it?
If the answer is yes, AI has probably done its job, and so have you.
Personalize Cover Letters and Applications
A cover letter is one of those things where AI can be really helpful, but it can also be really obvious when it has been created with AI.
If your prompt is simply “Write me a cover letter for this job,” you will probably get a perfectly acceptable letter. The same one 100 other candidates could have.
Instead, give AI the details that make you stand out. Tell AI why you are interested in this role, and what caught your attention.
Why are you interested in this particular role? What caught your attention about the company? Which parts of your experience connect directly to what they’re looking for? Is there an accomplishment you’re especially proud of?
You can even write the first rough version yourself and ask AI to help improve it.
The more of you that goes into the prompt, the more likely the final result is to actually sound like you.
Research And Prepare
AI can help organize information about:
- Companies
- Industries
- Competitors
- Roles and career paths
- Industry terminology
- Questions to investigate before an interview
It is important that you verify important details using company websites, job postings, LinkedIn, and any other resource at your disposal. While AI can be a great tool, not all the information will be accurate, and you need to do your due diligence to review the data that AI presents.
One thing that AI can help with is to help you prepare for the interview itself. You can feed it your information and the job description and ask it to act as an interviewer.
Be prepared to answer behavioural questions, give examples of past work, and talk about your accomplishments. You can then ask AI to provide feedback on your responses for clarity, specificity, and relevance.
AI Will Not Replace Human Judgement
AI can be a useful starting point when you’re researching:
- Companies and industries
- Competitors
- Roles and career paths
- Industry terminology
- Skills you may need to develop
- Questions to ask in an interview
But the words starting point are important.
AI can be wrong. It will only function as well as we tell it to. It can also provide information that’s outdated or state something as fact, when it is not.
If you’re researching a company before an interview, don’t rely on AI alone. Visit the company’s website. Read the job posting again. Look at their social media. Check recent news and other credible sources.
There are things that AI can not, and will not be able to do. It can’t build professional relationships. It doesn’t have your experience. It can’t be your professional reference. AI can’t sit in an interview as you, and it can not determine if you should accept a job offer.
Common AI Mistakes Job Seekers Should Avoid
AI can make a job search easier, but there are a few things you should avoid:
- Copying and pasting AI-generated content without reading or editing it
- Allowing AI to exaggerate your responsibilities, skills or accomplishments
- Trusting company or industry information without verifying it
- Using generic prompts and expecting a personalized result
- Sharing confidential, proprietary or sensitive information with an AI tool
Use AI to Become a Better Candidate, Not an Made Up One
The people who get the most value from AI probably won’t be the ones who use it for everything. They’ll be the people who know when to use it and when not to. The ones who customize prompts to help with the tedious performative tasks, organize information, clean up formatting and ensure they have eyes on the final work.
If you want to test AI for yourself, look at something you need to write. Maybe it’s a new cover letter, a LinkedIn post or even an answer to a generic interview question. Write it yourself. Now, give the same task to AI without showing it your response.
Compare the two. Does the AI version sound like something you would say? Is it truthful? Now, give AI the same task but give it your version. Prompt AI with what you like or dislike about both versions and ask it to match your writing style. Does this version look like something you would say?
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