I created a reel for job applications using AI. I wasn’t blown away

Two things in life will make you smaller: dating in New York City and applying for a job in 2024. The fictional Carrie Bradshaw said it best: In New York, you’re always looking for a job, a friend, or an apartment. .

While I’m not looking A job, as a freelancer I’m always looking for the next one jobs. My wife and a few friends are also looking for a job, so I have some good insights to draw from.

Their biggest pain point? Being bumped off LinkedIn’s job hunting section and forced to log into companies’ individual recruitment portals. But while the Easy Apply button isn’t always easy, there are other tools that can make the job search and unemployment process more manageable. With the wave of artificial intelligence, it has never been easier to add something surprising to your resume.

The goal: to be a wonderful haven for hiring managers reviewing resumes, making it easier to get your foot in the door.

I had heard about Canva’s new AI capabilities, so I wanted to try them out. Canva is a graphic design platform with tools and templates that anyone can use. The Australian company launched in 2013, but its AI suite, Magic Studio, became available to users in October 2023.

With Magic Studio you can create AI-powered designs, presentations, videos, animations and more. There are three different Canva plans: free, pro or teams. Some AI features are only available in pro or team plans, which range from $100-$120 per year. In the free version it specifies “AI-generated writing and design” and in the pro version it lists “20+ AI tools” as part of the offering.

I wanted to use AI to personalize my application, to show that there is a real human behind it and to showcase my thinking, experience and achievements. (And for more ways to use AI in your job search, check out these seven techniques we tried and how they work.)

Can Canva help your career?

I had an idea. To avoid being reactive and simply applying for jobs, I wanted to create a short showreel of myself and my work that I could also send to recruiters and share on social media.

I decided to create a 60-day campaign where I share it somewhere online once a day to draw attention to my profile, have more direct conversations, and show off my creativity. This strategy can be applied to any industry – you just need to adjust the assets, approach and target group.

A five-day plan could be:

1. Attach the reel to your cover letter and resume.
2. Write a message and share the reel.
3. Link the reel to the Featured section on LinkedIn.
4. DM a recruiter or potential employer and link the reel.
5. Reply to a post from an employee who works at a target company and link to it.

Before getting started with Canva, I asked ChatGPT what I should put in my video resume. It gave me some tips. Keep it short and focused; plan your script with an intro, key achievements, skills and expertise; film it with a professional background; add visuals to support what you’re talking about; tailor the video to your audience; and end with a personal message and a call to get in touch.

Sure, I could have used ChatGPT to draft the script for the showreel, but given its importance, I didn’t want to outsource the thinking or the words to AI. The key was not to give too much away and to make sure it didn’t feel like a needy “rent me” ad. Less marketing, more movie trailer feel.

Magic Studio put to the test

First I put together my bio/elevator pitch, a few photos, and my favorite work clips, and then I hopped over to Canva’s Magic Studio.

I then gave Canva some context about what I wanted to use this video for, to help it generate a design.

I didn’t like the text it generated, and it left out many important parts of my work samples, such as headlines and brand or publication names, so I had to make some adjustments.

It was also difficult to match the correct text with the accompanying image. This slide/story below was for my work in National Geographic, but nothing was mentioned about it.

I knew I wanted to use my bio, but I was curious how Canva would describe me based on the text I gave it. “I am a creative and experienced professional with a passion for storytelling.” Canva, we can do better than that.

I took the most important lines from my biography because I wanted to keep the video short. You can get these from your LinkedIn or ask ChatGPT to determine the seven to ten most important selling points from your resume.

Here’s mine:

I increased the time on each slide slightly (from 4 to 5 seconds) to give people more time to read each sentence. I also changed the animation of each slide to my liking. It probably took me an hour to upload and adjust in Canva.

To download it without the watermark I would have had to upgrade to Canva Pro. It’s worth it to avoid looking sloppy to potential clients or employers, but for my experiment I downloaded my video via the free version.

The verdict on Canva’s AI tools

What it produced was reasonable and functional. Did I need AI to create it? Since I changed a lot from what it initially offered, probably not.

Will I win an Academy Award for this clip? Absolutely not.

Will I convince recruiters or hirers? Maybe.