AI-Powered Job Search is Taking Off! 🛫

Is AI just a trend, or here to stay?

You can’t turn on the news or browse LinkedIn without seeing a new breakthrough in the AI space.

Everyone is rushing to figure out how to integrate with GPT3/4 or create a competitor.

In my opinion, while some of the use cases for AI might be gimmicky, the underlying technology is only going to get more powerful. And you’re going to want to be an early adopter.

I think this matters to you as a jobseeker for a couple of reasons:

1. Standing out from the crowd: Most companies in the tech space are going to be looking for people who can operate well in an AI-driven culture - for some of you, that may mean being able to work directly to build these technologies. For others, it’s going to be finding ways to implement them, knowing how to “talk the talk” with experts, finding use cases in your day-to-day work, being able to translate the technical concepts to make them understandable for customers, or even just being comfortable being in an environment where AI is used daily.
   Being knowledgeable here will give you an edge as a candidate.

2. Speeding up your job search: Any company that markets to jobseekers is figuring out how to incorporate this (for example, Teal which was initially more of a job tracker now has their resume/cover letter generator and is beta testing a tool that will auto apply to jobs for you - and as a bonus, they are offering 20 free subscriptions 20 Teal+ for users who generate a resume with their tool!) but you can also use tools like ChatGPT to craft resume bullet points and cover letters, create boolean strings to help you find open roles, or help you prepare for interviews.

3. Become a stronger candidate: Look, recruiting teams are using ChatGPT to design interview processes and prepare for interviews. So you should be too!
   For example, drop a job description in ChatGPT and then ask it to generate aligned interview questions. So if you and a hiring manager both do that, then pretty sure you’re both going to generate the same questions (see where I’m going with this)?
   Then, you can paste in your resume and ask ChatGPT to help with generating strong talking points for each question.
   This is going to give you a great starting point for any interview - whether your interviewers are using AI to generate the process or not, it’s going to predict a good number of questions and help you prepare your responses!
   Use this same process for application questions, projects, etc.
   
   Finally, I wanted to share some cool tools that can help you through the application and interview process:

   Kickresume: designer-quality resumes generated by AI? Yes please!
   Speeko: nervous about your interviewing or public speaking skills? Speeko offers you an AI coach!
   Profilebot4k: Check out this post for a free tool to help optimize your LinkedIn profile!

   Grammarly: Grammarly makes recommendations to strengthen the quality of your writing - if that’s not your strong suit, this is a great solution!
   AI Headshots: OK hear me out - need a new headshot for LinkedIn but can’t spend hundreds on professional photos? No problem! Use AI! Like anything AI-driven, they aren’t perfect BUT these were $17 - you can then spend $7 to have the company edit one so for $24, you could get a professional quality headshot! And if nothing else, it was worth $17 just for the laughs (and you can see some of mine here).
   AI Newsletters: I’ve got several I’m reading to help me keep up with news. One is Ben’s Bites (written by a colleague at Zapier!) and another is Superhuman. While newsletters aren’t directly related to recruiting, these ARE good resources to help you “talk the talk”.
   ChatGPT: How could I not include ChatGPT?! I’m sure everyone has tested this out, but how can you use it more effectively? Here’s a YouTube video courtesy of Grant Sundbye that shows how use ChatGPT to support you with your career search specifically. And here’s one that does a really good job of teaching you how to prompt ChatGPT even though it’s not specific to your job search.

And finally, a caution around using AI: remember that AI should be the foundation - but YOU are the real talent. Anything produced by AI is going to be generic, and lack any real personality, and it will never be able to translate everything in your head. Use AI to get something to 75% - and then put YOU into the product to get it to the finish line.

That image above is a good example - can I maybe see how AI got there? Sure. But clearly a lot more guidance would need to happen to make it really make sense! And that’s true with anything AI-generated.

YOUR thoughts on AI in the job search

Last week, I asked your opinion around using AI in the job search - and the results are in - nearly 90% of people say that you should be using it in some capacity in your search!

Check out some of the perspectives shared in comments - the synthesis for me is that using AI or automation features should certainly help us speed up our process and take some of the manual pieces out of our work. But we can’t rely SOLELY on these tools - they should be used to help you go further faster. But it’s still up to you to build the skill in using the right prompts to get the outputs you want, and then taking them from OK to great. Without this, they are going to hurt you in your search. I have yet to see an AI tool give a 100% great response without significant feedback and guidance from the user. Even after feeding it multiple examples of my writing and voice, it still produces something generic that I would never submit as my own - but it offers a decent foundation!

So make using AI to help you do even more of what you do best your super power, and you’ll be an even stronger jobseeker and even more of an asset to whatever company is lucky enough to hire you!

The In-Flight Amenities 🍱

A product you need to try: I shared a bunch of resources above, but let’s deep dive into one I love! Y’all, I am slightly obsessed with Kickresume!! They have gorgeous templates and leverage GPT-4 to help you not just with formatting but with the content of your resume, and you can tailor your resume and cover letter for different jobs with the press of a button. Many of them are more creative resume types with graphics, but I tested them out and they are ATS-friendly! But the other cool feature is that you can even use it to turn your resume into a website which you can then expand to build out your portfolio and such. Check it out here!

A company you need to check out: This week, I took a different approach here - we’re talking about AI, so let’s get you exploring AI companies! Here are 5 that are worth checking out, featured in an article from Wellfound.

Interested in being featured in this section? Nominate your company here.

A jobseeker you need to hire: Meet Jason Siegel!

Jason is an ex-lawyer turned data-informed product leader who applies an unusually interdisciplinary background to activate clear thinking, nurture well-rounded product teams, and achieve 10x measurable outcomes that matter.

Most recently, he led the 180° turnaround of data visualization and dashboarding features for the SaaS productivity platform ClickUp during hypergrowth. He has flexed between IC and people management roles and draws on extensive personal experience in software development, analytics, consulting, user research, and design.

Jason is currently seeking a product opportunity in a late-stage startup that values craft, inclusive culture, and solving meaningful problems with thoughtful user research and technological creativity.
Think you might have a role that’s a good fit for Jason, or be able to help make a connection? Add him on LinkedIn, or email him, and let’s get Jason hired!
Interested in having your story shared? Sign up here!

_{For more resources to support you in your search, check out my Linktree.
Interested in starting your own newsletter? Get started with Beehiiv - it’s the most feature-rich free option I found!}