Job Searching with AI: 7 Techniques We Tried and How to Use Them

There are many layoffs in the US and finding a new job is almost a competitive sport. It is also very time-consuming: scrolling through dozens of vacancies, choosing which ones are really relevant to you, creating an individual cover letter for each vacancy and making sure your application stands out.

Enter artificial intelligence. While it may not yet be able to balance a budget or come up with the best creative ideas, it is very effective at summarizing information and providing logical (usually) suggestions.

Super important caveat before using AI: triple check all the details AI spits out to you, even if you just asked it to summarize your performance. AI tools are known to hallucinate – or confidently respond to you with made-up details – so make sure you don’t inadvertently lie during your application.

You also don’t want to put sensitive or personally identifiable information into a chatbot, in case a data breach ever occurs.

With that in mind, here’s how to use AI tools in your search for your dream job (or any job, for that matter).

AI as your career coach

If you don’t even know where to start, you can give ChatGPT a try as your personal career coach.

If you tell the AI ​​tool “be my career advisor,” it will give you a list of information that you can curate: your current career status, education and skills, career goals, industry preferences, location flexibility, and lifestyle priorities. Plug in that information and you’ll get advice on how to use your skills and experience in a range of different roles.

Then you can send the ideas you like back to ChatGPT and ask for action plans and goals for each. You can even ask him to prioritize his action plans from simple to difficult, and provide a timeline for each action plan.

Check out our complete guide to see all the steps to using AI as a career coach.

Writing your CV: ChatGPT

Before you can start applying for jobs, you need to update and polish your resume. We tried it with ChatGPT, which you can use for free or pay $20 per month for extra features like priority access and the latest models.

Open the chatbot and ask it to create a resume with things like your career goals, work experience, education, skills, certifications, awards, languages, hobbies, and volunteer work.

Here’s a quick idea: “Create a resume for me using:

• My professional summary [paste]
• My work experience: [paste]
• My education: [paste]
• My list of skills: [paste]”

Don’t forget to enter any personal information into ChatGPT, so add your full name and contact information afterwards when you copy and paste it into a Google or Word document to finish.

And one more tip: you can send the finished product back to ChatGPT and ask for a short list of suggestions on how to improve your resume.

Check out all of CNET’s tips for creating a resume with ChatGPT.

Visually design your resume: Figma AI

Once you’re happy with the wording of your resume, you may want to consider a visually appealing resume that will help you stand out from the crowd.

The visual design feature from the beginning of Figma, which eventually lets you insert a text prompt so that an entirely new design can be generated, has been temporarily disabled. So for now, you’ll need an online template, an existing visual design you’ve created in the past, or create a design from scratch using another generative AI tool like Midjourney, Dall-E 3, or Adobe Firefly.

Then connect the design to Figma AI to freshen it up with tools like:

• Convert a static resume into an interactive resume if you want an online resume that moves.
• Divide your designs into layers so you can easily swap them out depending on the theme or task you are going for.
• Generate content and titles in your design mockup.
• Remove and replace wallpapers immediately.

Here are all of CNET’s tips on using Figma AI to design a resume.

Faster and more effective job searches with AI

A useful way to use AI is to ask it to generate job ideas and searches for you. You may want a version of ChatGPT that has Internet access, such as the $20 per month ChatGPT Plus, so it has up-to-date information, but you can also use the free version.

Then give it your career goals and experience and ideally what you’re looking for next. Ask it to give you some suggestions for roles, business types and career paths that align.

Once you get a list of jobs you might be qualified for, you can ask which companies you can contact. Don’t forget to mention which region you work in and whether you prefer remote or hybrid work. One way to get results that don’t just cover the general five big companies in your industry is to ask ChatGPT to provide a list of twenty mid-sized or lesser-known companies where it might be easier to find a job .

Finally, ask for help writing a short message to recruiters. If you do this, you no longer have to be one of a thousand applicants for the same vacancy.

Here are all of CNET’s tips on finding the job of your dreams using ChatGPT.

Putting out those application letters

One of the biggest pain points when applying for a job is when every application requires an individual, personalized cover letter. If you’re running out of creativity on how to do this for every job opening you come across, here’s how to use AI to help you.

You need an account with ChatGPT, as well as the vacancy and your new CV. Ask: “Write a cover letter for the role of __ on the __ team [company name]. Here’s the job description [paste from the job ad] and here is my resume [paste your resume in].

Again, make sure all your details are correct. You can ask them to stick to a word limit or highlight certain things from your resume that fit the job opening, and even to write in a more formal or informal way, depending on which company you’re applying to.

Paste the resulting cover letter into a document, make final edits, and voila: a cover letter for an individual job.

Here are all of CNET’s tips on how to use ChatGPT to write a job application letter.

Interview preparation with AI

If you’re (understandably) nervous about your upcoming job interview after working at a company for some time, AI can help you with that too. AI tools such as Final Round AI will help you prepare, for a price. The expensive service (premium plans start at $112 per month) helps you conduct mock interviews for more than 100 positions in consulting, marketing, finance, software, product, data science, and devops.

If you need a helping hand during your actual job interview, you might also consider running it in the background and checking out the suggestions on how to respond to it. Beware of the potential privacy implications of doing this.

Here’s what we discovered when we tried using AI for job interview preparation.

Negotiate a salary with AI

Finally, once you’re in the running for a great job, make sure you don’t sell yourself short. Use AI to help you figure out ways to negotiate a starting salary before you sign on the dotted line.

First, do a quick Google search on salary ranges for your job title, location, and company and get a good cross-section of sites like Glassdoor, Indeed, Payscale, Reddit, and ZipRecruiter.

Then insert a prompt like this in ChatGPT: “I am a [insert job role] in [insert your location]. According to Indeed, the average salary is $[plug in the number] and I would like to earn €[your ideal salary]. What advice would you give me to help me negotiate this salary with employers?”

ChatGPT will come up with phone and email scripts with all the details you need to include, which you can then use to negotiate your future wages.

Have fun looking for a job!