Software Guide: What Job Seekers Need to Know about ChatGPT

Are you a job seeker aiming to enhance your job search process? Artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed many sectors, including job hunting. ChatGPT is a prominent AI tool that helps job seekers create compelling resumes, cover letters, and prepare for interviews. This blog will delve into ChatGPT's role in job searches, its benefits, drawbacks, and how to incorporate it into your job search strategy. Let's explore what job seekers should understand about ChatGPT.

Understanding ChatGPT: A Brief Overview

Before we delve into the specifics, let's have a brief overview of ChatGPT and its significance in job searches. ChatGPT, powered by artificial intelligence, is an advanced language model capable of generating human-like responses. Its unique ability to understand and process text makes it a potentially powerful tool for job seekers. However, like all tools, ChatGPT has its limitations for job search in all the different ways that you could use it.

The Mechanism Behind ChatGPT

ChatGPT, or Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer, is simply a chatbot that is based on a large language model. It allows users to apply the power of ai to create humanlike conversational dialogue. This ability to enable users to refine and steer the conversation is also how the system trains itself. ChatGPT can be used for a variety of tasks and its capabilities depend on how users choose to use it.

ChatGPT uses artificial intelligence to analyze input data and generate responses. This AI is built by developers who aren't necessarily experts in talent acquisition or any other substantive area - the developers are experts in AI. This is possible because the tool is designed to be trained and improved by the people who use it. ChatGPT is able to understand context, adapt to new information, and provide relevant and insightful suggestions. As a result, ChatGPT has the power to streamline a job search if used properly.

Why ChatGPT Presents Opportunity for Candidates

Employers have been using technology to scan, sort, and filter candidates for a long time. In fact, these applicant tracking systems (ATS) first came on the market in the late 1990s. The use of the ATS has since exploded since that time. This is because online job boards have fueled an overwhelming number of applications for open jobs. Now, nearly all Fortune 500 Companies use an ATS and 70% of all other employers are using an ATS or some other kind of recruitment software. Job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter also provide employers with ATS capabilities when they post a job on commercial job boards. So, even if the employer doesn't use a stand-alone ATS, they are still using ATS functionality in other systems to evaluate applicants for open jobs.

In 2024, LinkedIn reports that the average number of applications for open positions on LinkedIn is 120+ applications. This means that, on average, when you apply for a job on LinkedIn, you are competing with 119 other people. In some cases, there are a lot of people applying for the same job. As a result, LinkedIn also reports that it takes an average of 160 applications to land a job in 2024. This means people need to prepare 160 different cover letters, resumes, or other materials to be considered for the position.

Unfortunately, with the ATS, the time spent on these applications has consistently been disproportionate. Right now, the average time spent on preparing each job application is 1 hour by the job seeker. But, the average time spent reviewing those materials by employers is less than a minute. In fact, most people make up their minds about a candidate within 6 - 8 seconds. So, the ability to use chatgpt feels like it could present a huge opportunity to level the playing field between employers and job seekers.

What ChatGPT Does Well for Job Seekers

The way chatgpt works and what it can do presents several advantages for job seekers. Our team tested ChatGPT and found that it does some things well. The following are the best ways to use ChaptGPT in your job search.

Provides a Strong Starting Point

The biggest advantage of using ChatGPT in your job search is that it creates a strong starting point for any job application materials. The best practices of providing relevant information to prompt ChatGPT to generate content to edit are huge. This time savings can be in all of the things that take the most time with the least reward (because employers spend so little time reviewing them) - creating resumes, cover letters, and thank you notes. You can use ChatGPT to create bullet points or to craft resume achievements, utilizing its ability to analyze your work history and professional background to tailor your application to specific job postings. Tapping into AI-powered insights can save a huge amount of time to streamline the process of resume writing and create powerful cover letters to save time in your job search.

Boost Your Resume

ChatGPT can assist you in building a resume that stands out from the competition. Job seekers can use ChatGPT to customize their resume for a particular job title or to build the resume from scratch. You don't have to be a software engineer to use the prompts to generate descriptions of your job history or to improve your current resume. optimizing your resume to stand out from the competition. For example, the tool prompts job seekers to include specific details about their work experience, ensuring that key achievements and skills are effectively highlighted for every new job they apply for.

Furthermore, ChatGPT helps job seekers create impactful resume summaries, enabling recruiters to quickly understand their career goals, years of experience, and unique skills. The tool can suggest powerful action verbs and provide guidance on presenting achievements and qualifications effectively. By leveraging ChatGPT, job seekers can take their resumes to the next level, significantly increasing their chances of securing interviews and impressing potential employers with professional summaries tailored to their desired roles and new career paths.

Help with Your Cover Letters

You can also use ChatGPT to draft the cover letters for your target role. With its advanced language generation capabilities, the tool can assist in crafting compelling and personalized cover letters that highlight your relevant experience and qualifications, increasing your chances of landing your dream job. It can even suggest specific keywords or phrases to include based on the job description, increasing the chances of your application getting noticed by recruiters.

Cover letters can be a good spot to tell the story beyond your resume about why you want the job and why you want to work for this company. As covered below, you can use ChatGPT to research the companies. You can apply that information in your cover letter to stand out, but that can take a lot of time. With the right prompts, you can streamline this process to create an effective message in your cover letter that makes the hiring manager want to bring you in for an interview.

Streamline Job Searches

Job searches can be time-consuming and overwhelming, but with ChatGPT, job seekers can streamline the process. The tool's job search prompts provide tailored recommendations based on specific needs, allowing job seekers to navigate through job listings more efficiently. These prompts help job seekers identify suitable job postings, saving time by targeting jobs that align with their qualifications and preferences.

Moreover, with the right prompts, ChatGPT can provide insights into the job market with valuable insights into the roles and industry trends. With ChatGPT as their job search companion, job seekers can approach their search with confidence, knowing they have access to targeted advice and recommendations.

Research Companies

In addition to job search prompts, ChatGPT can also provide job seekers with valuable insights into companies. By using ChatGPT, job seekers can gather information about potential employers, including company backgrounds, cultures, and values. This information helps job seekers make informed decisions about which companies align with their career goals and values.

ChatGPT can also provide industry trends and reputation information, empowering job seekers with a deeper understanding of the organizations they are applying to. By leveraging ChatGPT, job seekers can research companies more effectively, increasing their chances of finding the best-fit job opportunities.

Preliminary Assistance with Interview Prep

ChatGPT's interview preparation prompts offer job seekers the opportunity to practice common interview questions. You can use these insights to sharpen interview skills. By utilizing ChatGPT, job seekers can receive personalized suggestions on how to effectively communicate their qualifications, showcase their unique experiences, and answer interview questions confidently. ChatGPT's guidance equips job seekers with the knowledge and strategies necessary to excel in job interviews, helping them feel more confident and prepared for this crucial step in the job search process.

Job interviews often include challenging questions, and job seekers can benefit from ChatGPT's assistance in tackling them. ChatGPT can provide valuable advice and suggestions for addressing tough interview questions, ensuring job seekers are equipped with thoughtful responses. Additionally, ChatGPT can offer insights on addressing sensitive topics with professionalism and confidence before heading into the live job interview.

Hallucinations

One big risk of using ChatGPT in your job search is hallucinations. A hallucination for AI tools like ChatGPT is that the tool generates responses that may not be accurate or relevant to the job search process. Hallucinations are caused by the AI tool not having enough information or training to predict the string of words that best match your query. They can also be caused by biases in the data used to train the model or incorrect assumptions. As a result, the system will merely generate content to attempt to answer the prompt without the reasoning needed to consider whether or not the content is accurate.

Although ChatGPT-4 has the lowest hallucination rate of all AI tools out there right now (24% less than the Google competitor), these hallucinations still occur and they can cost you the job. Job seekers who are not familiar with the ATS or who are trying to change industries without the background to evaluate the content generated must be the most cautious of the content generated by ChatGPT. This is because you will likely have to severely edit the content generated and/or perform additional research to validate the content created. And, in that case, you are better served by simply writing it yourself or by seeking out professional guidance to generate better content in the first place.

Inaccuracies or Inconsistencies

Beyond merely making up content to make the prompter happy, ChatGPT can also generate completely inaccurate or inconsistent content. This content can be problematic for job seekers looking for help with their resume, researching companies, or seeking interview advice. Inaccurate or inconsistent information can lead to misunderstandings, confusion, and ultimately damage a job seeker's chances of success.

For example, ChatGPT may provide false or outdated information about a company's values, mission statement, or culture. This could be detrimental for applicants who are looking for a specific type of workplace culture and end up applying for the wrong company. Additionally, inaccurate advice on interview preparation or resume writing can lead to missed opportunities and rejection from potential employers.

As such, it is crucial to approach the content generated by ChatGPT with caution and always fact-check before using it in any professional capacity. It is also essential to keep in mind that ChatGPT is not capable of understanding context or nuances as humans do. Therefore, it may generate responses that can be considered offensive or inappropriate in certain situations.

Moreover, ChatGPT is still a relatively new technology and is continuously evolving. This means that its accuracy and reliability may not be as high as other sources of information such as experienced professionals or reputable career websites. It is always best to seek guidance from multiple sources and use ChatGPT as a supplement rather than the sole source of information.

Can Miss the ATS

ChatGPT is trained to generate content, it is not trained to generate content that is optimized for the applicant tracking systems or the ATS used by a particular employer. Unlike ChatGPT, the ATS can be quite archaic in their ability to read and interpret information about candidates. Part of why employers continue to use some of these limited ATS is because they have so much data already in stored in them and it would be too costly to modernize their systems.

As such, the limits of content generated by ChatGPT may not be compatible with the ATS and could potentially result in your application getting missed or overlooked. And, if you put that content into a resume template that is not ATS friendly, even the best content will get stuck in the ATS and you will get rejected for the job (or ignored entirely).

Beyond that, ChatGPT is simply not yet capable of accounting for recruiters who use the ATS to evaluate the resumes. Recruiters have varying technical skills like everyone else. They may be savvy in identifying relevant keywords to find the best candidates or they may rely heavily on the ATS itself to find the people for the open jobs. Thus, if you use ChatGPT with accounting for the ATS or how it gets used, you may be surprised at how much it hurts and not help your job search.

To address this issue, it may be best for you to consult with professionals to evaluate whether or not your resume is truly ATS optimized. Companies like The Contingent Plan have real people who are experts in the ATS and how it can be used. You can also claim a free resume review or consultation to assess how you really stack up with these systems.

Requires Editing (Sometimes Extensive) for Grammar and Style

AI-generated content, including responses from ChatGPT, may require extensive editing to ensure proper grammar, punctuation, and style. This is because AI-generated content is still in its early stages and cannot always match the complexity and intricacies of human language. As a result, it may produce responses that are grammatically incorrect or do not flow naturally.

ChatGPT is not a dedicated grammar-checking tool. It does not have the same accuracy or specificity as other tools that are built specifically for checking grammar. It also does not have the capability to always generate the best, or even consistent, style. As a result, it is quite common for ChatGPT to generate a passive tone that is not as impactful as the content needs to be for your resume or cover letter. Thus, you will need to run all content generated by ChatGPT through separate grammar and editing tools to ensure that it is as professional as needed for your job applications.

Moreover, AI-generated content may lack empathy and emotional intelligence. While ChatGPT can mimic human conversation to an extent, it does not have the ability to truly understand emotions or provide empathetic responses. This can be problematic when job seekers use ChatGPT to generate content to assist in their interview preparations. Pay particular attention to this issue if you are seeking guidance on delicate or sensitive topics that you know will come up in interviews such as being fired, gaps in your employment, times that you made a mistake, salary negotiations, etc.

Another concern with AI-generated content is the issue of bias. Since ChatGPT learns from existing data, it may pick up on biases and prejudices present in the data. This can result in discriminatory or offensive responses, which can have serious consequences for job seekers who aren't as careful with the content generated by ChatGPT.

ChatGPT and the Real Risks of Sharing Too Much

One of the most problematic and emerging risks of using ChatGPT and other AI tools is the privacy risk. Although ChatGPT is not open-source, the training of the tool is crowdsourced. This means that the content you put into it will be used to improve the tool and can be shared with others using it. This fact is outlined in the privacy policy right on the ChatGPT site.

And, if you cannot be open about your job search then you will want to be particularly careful with what information that you share with ChatGPT. Keep in mind that even your own ChatGPT requests could be shared with others and it has happened in the past. In fact, there are accounts of people seeing chats that others had performed on the tool. ChatGPT does have a private mode to prevent others from accessing your chat history, but OpenAI, the company running ChatGPT, continues to have access to everything and how that data will get used remains to be seen.

For those who work in highly regulated industries (i.e. healthcare, financial services, aerospace, insurance, etc.) or professions (i.e. lawyers, medical providers, compliance, accountants, etc.), you will also want to be extremely careful about what information you input into ChatGPT. You have to share content with ChatGPT to generate the content or answers to your questions for things like resumes, cover letters, or answers to potential interview questions. However, if you are legally or ethically from sharing this information publicly, then you should be particularly wary of using ChatGPT.

This is a real concern with the emerging data showing exactly the scope of data that is being leaked by ChatGPT. For example, a recent Vice article, accounts for the attack by Google researchers to force the tool to divulge private information about real people. In this attack for research purposes, ChatGPT disclosed real personal identifiable information (PII) for 85.8% of the PII generated. This content also remains out there indefinitely on ChatGPT in some form or another, so the full scope of the risks in sharing too much information with the system in a job search remains to be seen.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ChatGPT emerges as a valuable tool for job seekers, enhancing resume quality, streamlining job searches, and saving time. However, risks like inaccuracies, editing, and inadvertent disclosure of your private information must be considered as you use ChatGPT. Like any other tool, the effectiveness of ChatGPT in your job search depends on how you use it - from what inputs you use to how you evaluate and apply the outputs of the generative AI. If used properly, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool in your job search. However, it will not replace the need for a human to review the content before it is submitted to a potential employer.

Feel like a lot? Our team of career experts with extensive training in the ATS and AI can help expedite your job search. Claim a free consultation today to find out how.