With recent developments in AI technology, your Careers Service has written a series of blog posts on how exactly AI is going to impact your professional life. Our first blog explores the topic and why you may use AI
You might be using it out of curiosity, with friends or to help with course work but generative AI, and especially ChatGPT is changing the way employers and applicants interact. And, changing it rapidly. Employers and recruiters are struggling to keep up with the implications for their application processes. In particular, knowing how much of a CV, cover letter or application form has been written by AI or the applicant. Nearly half of students asked (by Cibyl1) say they would now use it as part of their application process. So, what are the benefits and pitfalls of using such a tool in the careers context? In the first blog of our AI and Careers series, David Ainscough explores the potential of generative AI for supporting you with your career, and some of the pitfalls to be aware of so you can use it effectively.
Why use generative AI to support your career planning and applications?
Generative AI can be thought of as another, personal expert standing by your shoulder to support you with your career planning and applications:
- It can save time.
- It can add a creative perspective to applications.
- It can facilitate comprehensive research, suggestions and ideas
- It can enhance confidence with information drawn from a collective body of opinion rather than one individual’s best guess
Particular support includes:
Researching organisations in a career sector.
All students are familiar with search engines and ChatGPT is an extension of that allowing you a more nuanced interaction with the internet. Refining your searching technique and identifying what will be specific interest using natural language will let you work closely with the search engines. Tell ChatGPT what you really need.
Writing application material
A recent survey of 2000 students by the Institute of Student Employers3 reported that 70% of candidates are planning to use it to create application forms.
Identifying career opportunities
You may not have realised it but Handshake, the Careers Service’s own jobs platform, is already using AI to highlight jobs which be of interest. You can go further using the same principles using interactive AI on a larger scale to be your own researcher. You can ask it to find additional jobs of interest and prompt it to reflect your own key skills and core personal and professional values such as salary, location, and levels of qualification and training.
Preparing for interviews
ChatGPT can be tasked with generating competency or behavioural questions for a careers sector to which you can respond. You can go further and ask for follow up questions, a rating and suggestions on how to improve.
What are some of the pitfalls of generative AI?
When it comes to applications, students may hope to use it as a tool which will save time and improve impact. However, many fail to realise that AI may not best reflect them as a candidate. It’s a short step to falling into an easy routine of making more applications that are less effective. Recruiters are already reporting an increase in longer answers to application questions, more copy and paste responses and wooden sounding script reading in video interviews that suggest AI is being used poorly and counterproductively.
Like any tool not used properly, generative AI tools can produce rubbish, errors or mistakes. Equally, it doesn’t know you or your experiences therefore the material it creates is only as good as the information it’s been given to work with. This is especially damaging if applications are then presented as if created by the applicant who is held accountable for something they didn’t, in reality, create. Recruiters are becoming wary of receiving CVs, cover letters, application forms and presentations that have been produced other than by the student…and with generative AI that could be a collection of misinformation and even “hallucinated facts” approximating to what the AI tool believes to be an answer.
It’s also worth noting that not all generative AI tools are created equal. At the time of writing, Chat GPT 3 is only trained on information up to 2021, therefore if you’re using it to research industries and sectors, you’ll need to fact check the information it provides. There are also inherent biases in Generative AI tools that influence its responses, something to bear in mind when evaluating the information it provides to you.
What to do next?
Over the next few weeks, the Careers Service blog series ‘Careers and AI’ will offer further details of how to safely use generative AI to support you at all stages of career thinking, whether you’re just getting started or actively making applications. Until then…
Start to explore how a particular the career sector in which you have an aspirational interest is being influenced or affected by developments in AI. Prepare yourself to offer insights and answer questions if the topic comes up at interview. All organisations are affected and recruiters want to know that you’ve informed yourself in advance of the implications for roles.
Finally, have a play with the tool yourself. Many alarmist remarks are being made about Generative AI and whilst much is thought provoking and worthy of reflection the fear and anxiety around the future of jobs can be best allayed by experiencing for yourself.
So, if you haven’t yet tried it add to your New Years (Career) Resolutions list to spend just thirty minutes seeing what all the fuss is about.
- Cibyl received responses from 647 students currently studying at UK universities in a survey conducted during May 2023. 32 per cent of respondents were finalists, 33 per cent in their second or middle years, and35 per cent first years. How are students using ChatGPT in their studies and the graduate recruitment process? (cibyl.com)
- (2) How to Hack Interview Prep with ChatGPT | LinkedIn
- Revolutionising recruitment: data-led insight on ChatGPT’s impact right now, Artic Shores (1) ISE & Arctic Shores Webinar Revolutionising Recruitment ChatGPT’s Influence on Candidate Application – YouTube