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It’s a tough time to be on the hunt for a new job. Posts are flooded with comments and hundreds of applicants. You have to work hard to stand out, but it’s easy to get disillusioned by fake job postings and mass generic automated rejections — or worse, get ignored after applying somewhere.
Take a breath and use new tools to find a job you love. Create your resume and a custom cover letter and tailor your job search with the help of artificial intelligence.
AI tools are being used in HR to streamline an otherwise tedious process. While new solutions are being introduced, there’s a lot to like about ChatGPT. It’s a collection tool for creating your documents, a research tool, and a career advisor. Just know that like many AI chatbots, it requires smart prompts from you, which may involve some trial and error.
You can sign up for an account to use a free version of ChatGPT, or pay $20 per month for more features, such as the latest data, priority access, and image generation.
Here’s how to get hired with a little help from AI. And if you’re looking for more ways to use AI, check out our articles on how to use Midjourney to create wedding invitations and how to use AI-powered Grammarly for all your editing needs . For more AI tips, news, and reviews, check out CNET’s AI Atlas hub.
Tell ChatGPT about yourself
Give it your elevator pitch — the summary of your career, experience, ambitions, and values. I’m a journalist, but the same processes apply regardless of your field.
Quick: “I am a [career] and have worked at [previous companies]My main skills are [XYZ] and my aspirations are [1, 2, 3]. Can you suggest roles, industry types, and career paths that best match my experience and goals?”
This is what I entered:
It provided detailed results on a number of functions, company types and career paths we could target, such as prestigious publications, media companies and publishers, think tanks and startups.
Give it your resume
To be more specific, enter your resume into ChatGPT. Just make sure to remove any sensitive information that you don’t want in the AI, such as your contact information to prevent future data breaches or unnecessary risk.
Quick: “Here is my resume. Please provide further suggestions.”
This time it gave (without pushing) advice to improve my career, and even more detailed suggestions for roles and career paths. But I wanted even more specific direction.
Ask for advice
Having worked as a freelancer for 10 years (as a reporter for publications and a writer for brands), I wanted to know where ChatGPT thought I would be most successful.
I asked: “What is the strongest part of my resume? Will I be more successful when applying for a job as a reporter or copywriter?”
Although I have a solid decade of corporate writing experience, ChatGPT knew I would find more fulfillment in a reporting role, specifically cultural criticism. It made suggestions about the strengths and opportunities I would bring to each type of role, and provided a general recommendation.
To make it even more specific, I added, “Joan Didion is my inspiration for my career.” In response, ChatGPT added a summary of Didion, mentioning her in various places in the job, company, and career suggestions, briefly explaining how they related to her career.
This is some of what was proposed:
Generate a list of top companies to start
I then went through everything ChatGPT had said so far and highlighted the roles or recommendations I liked. I then fed it back to ChatGPT and asked them which top companies I should approach, and where I live.
Quick: “I’m most interested in senior journalist, feature writer, culture critic, editor-in-chief, editorial director, content director, and chief content officer positions. What are the top 30 companies I should target for a new job? I live in the New York City area but work remotely.”
It gave me a lot of information, but no new ideas for businesses to start. I replied, “Give me a second list of 30 businesses that aren’t as big and where it might be easier to get a job.”
The results were better, with suggestions divided into categories for mid-sized and smaller publications, specialized and niche publications, and regional and local publications. It also gave me strategies on how to apply to those publications, including leveraging my network, showing my versatility, writing tailored pitches, and highlighting my portfolio.
A message for recruiters
I chose 10 companies from ChatGPT’s list and then asked them to write a message to a recruiter introducing myself and expressing my interest.
Quick: “Write a short message to the recruiter at the following five companies introducing myself and expressing my interest: Narratively, Longreads, Mother Jones, Salon, and The Cut.”
I got a pretty generic suggestion back, so I challenged ChatGPT further: “Remove the generic intro to the Narratively post and mention the previous reporting I did on the corporatization of LGBTQ+ fertility, expatriation, and cultural fragmentation.”
I’ve tweaked it a bit to make it sound more natural and more like me. That’s the version I’m going to have ChatGPT use for the other four messages.
Once you have your messages in order, you can send them to your best contact via LinkedIn DM or email. It may be worth using LinkedIn Premium during your job search.
Use this strategy to reach employers directly, personalize your application approach, and bypass the job boards.
