How To Use AI To Write A Resume

The world we live in today looks radically different from two decades ago. Technology continues to evolve at an unprecedented rate, with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) being one of the most revolutionary developments of the modern era. The ever-growing reliance on AI tools raises serious questions for the future of our occupations and careers. Despite these rational concerns, the potential of AI is undeniable, and avoiding it won’t simply make it disappear. It's better to find ways to leverage AI to your advantage. We’ll explore using AI to write a resume.

It’s important to understand that AI is a tool, not a complete solution. If you enable ChatGPT to write your resume in its entirety, you’ll be underwhelmed by the results. Despite the incredible leaps forward in recent years, AI isn’t capable of understanding the context and nuances of your professional background. It can provide a starting point, especially if you're suffering from a bad case of writer’s block. The best way to make the most of ChatGPT for resume writing purposes is to let it give you a first draft that you can refine and mold according to your career needs.

Even for professional writers, the blank page can be an intimidating and daunting obstacle. Sometimes getting started truly is the hardest part, especially if your occupation is diverse or niche. You can give yourself an initial framework to tell your story by uploading your information into ChatGPT. The content won’t be extraordinary, but it does give you something to build from.

AI is capable of helping you capture the more straightforward and routine aspects of your daily workflows. For instance, if you work as a quality assurance analyst at a software company, there’s only so many ways you can describe reviewing code. Just be aware that submitting a fully AI-written resume is unlikely to move the needle during the job search.

The current iteration of ChatGPT is undeniably impressive, but the substance of the bullet points and resume summary it generates isn’t going to turn heads; they are too generic. That said, if you are struggling to write about your professional experience, seeing what ideas it comes up with might spark inspiration. For example, say ChatGPT creates a generic bullet point for a marketing manager about developing impactful strategies. This might help you recall an initiative you led to grow market share by expanding product visibility for a customer segment in an untapped vertical.

ChatGPT shouldn’t do all the heavy lifting, but it can provide some support to improve the phrasing of your bullet points. In all likelihood, you’ll still need to make further refinements on your own, but at the very least, it can help reword an overly long and complex bullet. Letting AI aid you during the editing process can be useful, provided you review the changes carefully.

An AI tool can never tell your story as well as you can. Your career experience and achievements are a direct reflection of your work as an industry professional, and they won’t be impactful without your context. ChatGPT can’t provide compelling insights into how you helped transform an organization's culture. It won't mention how you developed a user experience (UX) design feature that maximized accessibility for colorblind users. By filling in the gaps yourself, you can reap the benefits of AI without compromising the human element.

A common trait of an AI-generated resume is its tendency to use the same percentages repeatedly. While ChatGPT understands what a resume typically should look like based on existing examples, it can’t comprehend how to put an accomplishment into proper context. If you use an AI tool to craft bullet points, you’ll likely see “improved efficiency by 25%” in the professional experience section.

Moreover, AI can make assumptions that aren’t accurate. If you asked ChatGPT to create a nursing resume, you might be given a bullet point that mentions how you reduced mortality rates by 25%. This outlandish number would instantly draw scepticism from a hiring manager within the health care industry. For ChatGPT, the number is quite random and not necessarily realistic.

If you’ve used ChatGPT to write a resume, it’s highly likely that a cliche term such as “detail-oriented” has appeared at some point. It’s not that solution-seeking skills and communication aren’t important; these qualities are expected of nearly every professional. Generic buzzwords won’t impress a hiring manager or provide a helpful understanding of your industry expertise.

This depends entirely on your individual needs. If you work in a technical field and often struggle with writing, AI can be a great tool to help you start putting your experience onto the page. That said, even while using ChatGPT, review the content with a colleague or professional resume writer. If an organization thinks you used AI to write your entire resume, it can be seen as a red flag.

Only if you’ve generated a resume using ChatGPT without taking the extra steps to refine your content and give it a personal touch. AI has been integrated into workflows rapidly, and there’s nothing wrong with using these technology capabilities tactically to achieve your goals. Relying on AI tools completely is a mistake, however, and certainly won’t produce a resume that stands out to the hiring manager.

AI is best utilized as a means of starting the resume writing process, especially if you’re struggling to overcome the blank page. This gives you an initial framework and potential ideas for capturing your unique experiences as an industry professional.