There are dozens of articles out there about using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write your resume. AI tools such as ChatGPT may bring great relief to many of us who don’t love writing and who experience anxiety at the thought of writing a resume. AI feels like magic because you can provide input and receive output that looks great.
If you are going to use AI to help you create a resume, it is critical to make sure that you never lose the human touch from start to finish.
Here are a couple of tips that will ensure that your résumé is the strongest that it can be whether you use AI or not.
Avoid Garbage In, Garbage Out
The quality of a resume generated by AI will be determined by what you put into its creation. Your résumé is more than simply a list of your work experience, your education, and your certifications. It is an opportunity to “tell the story” about how you were able to impact an organization. As an example, it’s not just that you “increased sales by 100%,” but how you increased sales by 100%. You can then show how the skills you used to achieve an accomplishment may have been used to achieve other accomplishments either within the same company or a position with a different organization.
This is something that AI cannot do for you. It requires some pre-work. We often think of AI as a time saver, but using AI properly requires ensuring that you have provided the information it needs to do the job well.
Recommendation
Write out your accomplishments and then describe how you achieved each of them. You may see patterns emerging from position to position. This does take some time but it’s well worth it. This work becomes part of the input you can upload to the AI tool to produce your resume.
In fact, doing this yields an additional benefit because this process also helps prepare you for an actual interview. You’ll be able to communicate effectively about how you’ve consistently utilized important skills, whether in volunteer work, internships, or full-time employment. This will help you stand out.
So, what happens when you get the output?
Don’t Run With the Initial Output!
It can be a great relief to see ChatGPT produce a lovely résumé, loaded with the right keywords within seconds of your input. But it would be risky to take that output and run with it.
Recommendation
Consider this output a starting point no matter how “good” it looks. You need to be a critical reader. Your initial review should be to make sure that the information has been captured properly. Then you need to read the output closely to look for issues that are associated with AI-generated content. I have seen AI tools generate resume content that is repetitive and overly flowery. Each sentence should contribute something new to the reader’s understanding of your experience. Ensure that the tone is professional. You should plan on editing the output, deleting the unnecessary, and enhancing the remainder to support the message that you want to deliver to a potential employer.
AI tools may save you time and reduce your anxiety about creating a résumé. They offer a unique ability to customize your résumé more easily for a specific industry or tailor it to a particular job opening. However, the time spent preparing and creating the input and the time you take to critically review the output is worth the effort. Not only will this create a superior product, but it’s part of the process of preparing your messaging for interviews. You will be noticeably more comfortable telling your story and differentiating yourself from the competition.
As a coach focused on helping recent grads and early career individuals find internships and full-time professional positions, I collaborate with universities and other organizations to provide training and workshops that help job hunters prepare for the interview process. If you’d like to learn more reach out to Kerrie@CommandtheInterview.com.