Businesses are increasingly using AI tools such as Applicant Tracking Software (ATS systems) that scan and filter applicants CVs. As well as AI interview software, that scans video applications for interviewers and grades them based on set criteria.
But we think that you should have the opportunity to use AI tools to help you in your job search. After all, why should interviewers and businesses have all the fun. Because AI tools can be an incredibly helpful tool in your job search.
Earlier this year, Resume Builder researched how effective AI tools such as ChatGPT can be in supporting your job search. Their results showed that:
- 70% of applicants who used ChatGPT reported a higher response rate from businesses.
- Of that 70%, 78% received interviewers, and 59% were hired for the position.
- However, 11% of those applicants were rejected from the process when the interviewer found out that they were using ChatGPT in their application.
So while the results weren’t all positive, it did show a strong case of how even a straightforward and general AI tool like ChatGPT can be extremely helpful in securing yourself a new job. Especially if writing isn’t something you love.
6 Ways To Use AI in Your Job Search
Evidence shows that AI can help you in your job search. But we advise against relying on it fully. Any content that an AI tool creates for you should be edited to let your own voice and personality shine through, make it sound less like it was written by a robot, and obviously to check for mistakes,
But writing content is just one of the many uses of AI in job searching (although that is helpful, if you don’t love writing). We’ve explored some of the different ways in which AI can be used for a job seeker.
1. Using AI To Write Your CV or Resume
By now most of us have used, or at least heard, about ChatGPT. But there are now also plenty of custom built platforms and websites for writing CVs or resumes that are powered by ChatGPT.
AI tools such as ResumA.I and Kickresume can be used to create individually customised CVs and resumes created by ChatGPT, and even put into a CV format for you.
Below we tried Kickresume, which we found to be simple and easy to use. All we entered was a name and job title and it goes away and puts together a fairly accurate CV for a Network Engineer: Including typical work experience and responsibilities.
Kickresume gives you plenty of different sections to choose from: Awards, Education, Skills, Hobbies, Work experience, Professional Summary etc. So you can create a CV that includes exactly what you want it to.
Unfortunately while it is “free”, for a lot of the options you need to pay for the “premium” subscription. So if you don’t want to pay, you can still use it as a great starting point to base your own CV off. Because while it gives you a lot of great information, you should absolutely go through and make edits that you need to anyway.
Before writing your CV, you should have a look here at our guide on writing CVs, to make sure you only include the most relevant information.
2. Using AI To Write Cover Letters Individually Tailored To the Job
In the same vein, there are also AI driven tools for writing cover letters. This can be infinitely more helpful, as the cover letters you send should be individually tailored to the jobs you’re applying for. Which unfortunately also makes them much more time consuming to write.
We’ve tested a few different cover letter writing AI tools such as CoverDoc.ai and Kickresume.
While we loved Kickresume for CV and resume writing, we found their cover letters a little lacklustre. In comparison however, CoverDoc.AI gave a comprehensive cover letter after just providing the job description, your name, job title and LinkedIn profile.
CoverDoc provides a disclaimer with the cover letter saying that you should edit it yourself instead of just sending it off, as it may not be entirely accurate to your experience. So tailoring your cover letter to your experience and checking it is accurate, is essential.
As you can see here, it provides a well written cover letter that addresses the main points from the job advert. However, the AI is less concerned about whether everything it writes is “true”. For example, Dynamic Search Solutions hasn’t won a Broadband Provider Award. Probably because we’re a recruitment agency. Which would be an immediate giveaway to any hiring manager that this wasn’t written or even proofread by a human.
If you aren’t sure what’s the best practice for cover letter writing, have a look at our guide here, for writing cover letters in the IT, Network and Infrastructure industries.
3. Make Sure Your CV and Cover Letter Match the Job Advert
But writing your CV, resume, or cover letter, isn’t the only thing that AI can do to support you in your job search.
Resume/ CV/ Cover letter optimisation tools such as Jobscan and Lightcast can help to check that your applications contain certain “keywords”: Making them more likely to pass through any Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) like we mentioned earlier. And while not every business uses these systems, optimising your CV to pass through these systems is crucial for it ever reaching a real person who will offer you an interview.
And it’s never bad practice to ensure your CV and cover letter match the job advert for the role you’re applying for anyway!
We created a fictional CV of a Network Engineer and matched it to one of our Network Engineer job adverts by putting it through Jobscan, and these are the results we got.
Jobscan says that we’re missing a bit of information to make us a good match for this role, with a lack of hard skills being a big factor. How accurate this is, is up for debate however. As the hard skills that jobscan has pulled from the job advert, are different from what we would consider the important keywords to include.
We would strongly recommend going through the job description and identifying your own keywords, but using AI tools like Jobscan aren’t a bad place to start, to give yourself an idea of what to look for.
4. Use AI To Practice Interview Questions
So, AI can help you with your application. But that’s not all it can do, because it can even help with preparing for your interview.
On the simple side, when CoverDoc.AI writes a cover letter for you, it also gives examples of potential interview questions you might see. Although the answers it gives, are locked behind a paywall of course.
Interview prep software does get more complicated and comprehensive, with dedicated interview preparation AI tools like Prepper and Interview Meetup. These tools give industry specific and tailored interview questions that can be more helpful to you than a long list of generic interview questions.
Let’s have a look at Google’s Interview Meetup. It gives you easy access to a host of questions for your individual industry, and allows you to browse all the questions to choose some that are best for you.
And better than that, the AI also lets you record your answer, transcribes it for you, and then gives you an evaluation and teaches you how to improve your answers.
Of course we still advise having a look at the interview questions that you can expect, to prepare yourself for the full range of interview questions you can expect that may not be specific purely to the role.
5. Practise Your Video Interview Techniques and Body Languages
Similarly, there are even AI tools such as Interviewer.AI to help judge your actual interview techniques. Sometimes you can be making mistakes in video interviews without knowing. Which is where tools like this are so useful, helping to evaluate your body language and interview techniques.
6. Use AI To Evaluate Salary and Market Conditions
AI tools can also be used to help evaluate whether a job is the right one for you, by using the market conditions to judge the salary you are being offered. AI tools like Payscale’s salary report and negotiation tools analyse thousands of job listings and salary surveys, to estimate your potential earnings.
Because you can give more information such as location, years of experience, previous experience, and skills needed for the role, it can give you a more accurate and individually tailored idea of salary expectations. And going into any salary negotiations you’ll be much better equipped than if you had just looked at a few salary surveys or job postings.
Of course knowing your worth is only half the battle. The next step is successfully negotiating yourself the salary that you know you’re worth. For tips on negotiating a notice period, have a look at your comprehensive guide here
These are just a few of the AI tools out there that can support you in your job search. And more are being developed and released everyday. So if you are searching for your next role, then it’s worth checking out to see which new tools have been released.
Of course, having some AI support in your job search is great. But it doesn’t replace having a recruiter supporting you through the entire process. And unlike some of these tools, working with a recruiter is completely free! If you’re looking for a new role in the Network, infrastructure, Cloud or IT industry, reach out here and one of our expert recruitment consultants will be in touch!