While you’ve undoubtedly heard of ChatGPT, did you know it can help you improve your resume? Everyone struggles at some point to come up with ways to update their resume. Fortunately, with ChatGPT, an advanced language model, you have one more tool to help craft inspired job materials. Learning about the technology powering its ability to craft language can help you break through writer’s block. Read on to learn more. 

One of the key strengths of the tool is its ability to generate text that looks a lot like human language, which makes it a valuable tool in the resume-writing process. ChatGPT uses deep learning and a massive dataset to generate human-like responses, and it’s learned from text like articles, books, and websites to give the most relevant responses.  

Leveraging ChatGPT for Resume Inspiration 

Because of ChatGPT’s access to large datasets, it can advise on resumes across a range of industries and professions, which means whether you’re a software engineer, marketing professional, or healthcare worker, you can find inspiration to refine your resume. Remember, though—while the tool can be a big help, it’s just that—a tool to inspire and assist.  It won’t be a good substitute for your unique voice, and you still need to personalize your job materials to authentically represent you. 

Injecting the Human Element

Imagine a lot of candidates are onto the benefits of using tools like ChatGPT for the same reasons as you, including resumes. Try to see this as an opportunity; the great thing about a market saturated with new tech is you can put in a little extra work and stand out (don’t phone it in like this guy). Do yourself a favor—own your talents and revise, revise, revise. Here are some ways you can refine the suggestions:

Align with the Job Description and use Keywords

The more you can directly address the employer’s needs, the more relevant and credible you’ll look as a candidate. In fact, many companies use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to manage and filter resumes, which rely on keywords to identify candidates. You’ll be that much closer to passing the screening process if you weave them into your resume. With that in mind, a good starting place could be to make a list of the action words that show up in the job ad for the role you want, and then use suggestions from ChatGPT to revise your materials for the position. Not all the ideas that come from the tool will be relevant to the target job; you’re probably the best person to decide what is. 

Look at Format and Structure

Your resume should be clearly structured, organized, and easy to navigate. And the easier your resume is to scan, the more time hiring managers will spend considering you for the role. If you’re not sure where to start, you can ask ChatGPT for advice on grouping content into sections (e.g., work experience, education, and skills). Just make sure you agree before you finalize your materials. 

Resume Idea Prompts

One thing is for sure—effective prompts will get you a lot further than random input. By providing specific, conversational prompts to the tool, you can get suggestions for content and strategies to structure content. By using the upcoming prompts, you can elicit suggestions to improve your resume. Start by sharing some context about your professional background with the program, and then try some of these prompts for inspiration:

• Highlight my key skills and qualifications for a [specific job title/industry].
• Suggest how to make my work experience section stand out more for a role as [specific job title].
• Showcase my achievements and accomplishments as a good fit for [specific job title].
• Give effective ways to structure the content of my resume to improve readability. 
• Draft a strong objective statement for a role as [specific job title] given the qualifications I entered. 
• Provide suggestions to incorporate relevant keywords from this job ad for an ATS-friendly resume: [paste details of job ad].
• Give me some creative ways to demonstrate soft skills on my resume.
• Help me tailor my resume to stand out against candidates with more experience in the [specific industry] field. 
• Summarize my expertise and career goals.
• Give me strategies to highlight transferable skills on my resume.
  
  

If you don’t get the expected answers from the tool, try being more specific and adding clarifying statements to get more helpful ideas. 

Conclusion

ChatGPT has revolutionized how job seekers approach resume writing by providing instant ideas and inspiration. By tapping into the benefits of these tools, you can save time, gain new perspectives, and create a relevant, unique resume. However, it’s important to remember that it’s meant to be a tool that enhances the writing process and needs to be complemented by human skill, so don’t neglect to revise until the content represents you.