Careers Consultants Darren Johnson and Raj Sidhu reflect on ways you can use ChatGPT to (i) explore career ideas from scratch and (ii) refine and weigh up existing career ideas you might have – with sample prompts you can use
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Explore career ideas from scratch
Ask open questions: After setting the context of who you are, what you’re studying, where, and listing between 3-5 skills or interests you have, try variations of the following prompts:
- What careers align with my interest in [specifics here]
- What are some unexpected career options that I might not have thought about
- What careers are people happiest in after a degree in [specify degree here]
- I care about [specify here]. Are there any jobs that makes sense for me?
- I don’t want to spend 10 hours a day at a desk. What roles should I consider?
- What careers are best for work-life balance in the UK?
- What careers are best for fully remote work in the UK?
- I want a job where I help people solve problems, while being intellectually stimulated. Any thoughts?
- How can I leverage my strength in [specify here]?
- I’ve always been attracted to [specify here], what are some other careers I might think about in this vein?
- What entrepreneurial pathways might be open to me?
We recommend not taking ChatGPT’s responses too literally…. instead reflect on what its outputs make you think and feel. If you’re put off by some suggestions – or excited, ask yourself why. Self-reflection is a crucial part of considering career options. From this, construct a list of attributes you would like a potential career to have, and try feeding this more refined list back into your prompts.
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If you have some ideas of what you might want to do
ChatGPT can be a useful tool for refining career ideas. Here are some prompt ideas to help you parse the options you might be considering:
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of a career in [specify here]?
- What training do I need in the UK to become a [specify here]?
- I`m interested in a career in [specify here] but don`t want to do a graduate scheme what are the alternatives?
- What would make a candidate attractive when pursuing a career in [specify here]?
- What are the current labour market conditions for [specify here] careers?
- What are the top 3 themes current employees in [specify here] share about their career?
- What kind of work/life balance does a career in [specify here] have?
- What fully remote job roles are there in [specify here]
- Who are the best [specify here] companies to have implemented programmes to support the advancement of [ specify here] i.e. women /disabled /ethnic minorities?
- What is the typical starting salary for a [specify here]
- How do incomes compare between [specify here] and [specify here]?
- How much can I expect to earn after [specify here] years in [specify here]?
- What are the typical entry level positions in [specify here]
- What are the pathways to progression in [specify here] career?
- What are the risks associated with a career in [specify here]?
- How vulnerable is a [specify here] career to AI or other forms of automation?
- How will careers in [specify here] potentially change over the next 5-10 years?
Remember that data sources ChatGPT draws from might not be current (especially if using version 3.5), and it might hallucinate: pass off information as real, that has no evidential basis. Use the answers that ChatGPT generates as indicators of broad themes and ideas to explore further, through independent research. Ultimately, we feel the best way to refine career ideas is through direct experience, and through 1-1 conversations with those currently pursuing that career.