One of the worst ways to use ChatGPT as a job seeker is to see a viral post on LinkedIn and actually believe these one- or two-sentence prompts will help you research a company, generate a personalized cover letter, and prepare for interviews. In reality, the authors clearly have not done any testing; they're not even job seekers, and the only purpose of these posts is to generate hype and to get people to sign up for their products. Compare this with one of the best ways to research companies as a candidate: assume the role of a job search coach with over 20 years of experience.
I’m interviewing for the Product Marketing Manager position at Stripe. Your task is to conduct detailed research and return the following: Stripe's core business model, how they make money, their top three competitors, and how Stripe's products are differentiated. Additionally, provide specific tips for candidates applying for the Product Marketing Manager position.
This prompt follows the 80/20 rule by only asking for information relevant to the initial research phase of your job application process: an overview of their business model, the competitive landscape, and the experiences you should emphasize in your letter and resume given the position you're applying for. Speaking of prompting ChatGPT to generate an entire cover letter, it is a terrible idea because you'll always end up with a generic and robotic output. This is because current AI models are not great at solving complex problems like writing an entire personalized cover letter with one single prompt.
This is why the Chain of Thought prompting technique exists. I'm oversimplifying here, but basically, instead of trying to use one prompt to write an entire cover letter, we break the cover letter into parts—paragraphs in this case—and use separate prompts to generate each paragraph. To start your cover letter with a strong hook, follow these steps: assume the role of an experienced career coach for the rest of this conversation.
I will first share my resume with you. There’s no need to take additional action; if you understand, respond with "yes. " Here is my resume: [paste your resume].
Now I will share the job description for the job I'm applying for. No additional action is required; if you understand, please respond with "yes. " Here’s the job description: [paste the job description].
I want to stand out from other job seekers by reverse engineering the job description to uncover exactly what the company is looking for. Analyze the job description and identify the biggest challenge someone in this position would face day-to-day. Give me the root cause of this issue.
Bear with me for one last step: now your task is to write an attention-grabbing hook for my cover letter that highlights my experience and qualifications in a way that shows I empathize and can successfully take on the challenges mentioned in the job description. Consider incorporating specific examples of how I've tackled these challenges in my past work, and explore creative ways to express my enthusiasm for the opportunity. Keep my hook within 70 words and give me three variations.
Yes, we used four prompts instead of one to generate the first paragraph, but the higher quality output we get from ChatGPT is well worth that additional bit of effort. The second paragraph of our cover letter should expand on relevant experiences, so we input “I like this option,” because we have three variations. Now your task is to write the next paragraph of my cover letter by expanding on a specific experience from my resume that most relates to the cover letter hook.
This is a bit long; I probably have to cut this down a little bit, but overall it looks good. Lastly, your task is to close out the cover letter with a final paragraph reiterating my strong interest in the role. Be concise and keep it within 50 words.
And there you go! Do we still need to make some edits here? Oh yeah, but do we also shave off hours from the cover letter writing process across multiple applications?
Definitely! This next use case is one of the worst I’ve seen yet, yet tons of people are raving about it, and that’s relying on auto-apply tools that market themselves as a one-click solution for job seekers. As I've hopefully established in this video and in all my job search videos, the more tailored our application, the higher the chances of success.
AI makes the process more efficient for us, but does not actually replace the work we have to do. That’s why Teal is the only job search tool I’ve ever agreed to work with, because they’re a job search companion that complements our workflow. After installing the free extension, I found it frictionless to save roles from job boards with just one click and how you can import your experiences either through LinkedIn or by uploading an existing resume.
Now, the crazy part: here’s my resume under the Resume Builder tool. I can go to the matching tab and select the job I've saved, click job description, select one of my bullet points on the left, click the enhance with AI option, click customize AI, click job description, and now I can use AI to tailor every single one of my bullet points to the job description. That’s insane!
I honestly can’t believe all this is free. Sign up using the link down below. Thank you, Teal, for sponsoring this video!
Next, we have one of the best ChatGPT use cases for job seekers, and that’s copying someone else’s winning formula—or what I like to call “steal with pride. ” For example, this LinkedIn creator, Josu Valz, is amazing. Give him a follow!
He curated 20 of the best LinkedIn headline templates, and if we want to steal with pride, we can use this prompt: “Assume the role of a career coach with over 20 years…” Of experience, I will share my resume, and your task is to generate an eye-catching LinkedIn headline for my LinkedIn profile. Use this headline template, paste one of the templates that you like, and keep the headline within 100 characters. Give me three variations.
Here's my resume, and you paste your resume. Another example of "Steal with Pride" would be professional summaries for your resume. First, find a mentor or colleague who has a professional summary structure you want to copy.
Then, prompt ChatGPT with "Assume the role of a career coach. . .
" I will share my resume, and your task is to generate a concise and compelling professional summary for my resume. Use the structure of this professional summary for my colleague who just successfully landed a new job; insert their example. Keep the professional summary within 200 characters, include quantifiable metrics, exclude adjectives and adverbs, and give me three variations.
Here's my resume, and you insert your resume. Now that we're done "Stealing with Pride," it's time to learn from the best. Austin Bellac is a friend and mentor of mine, and his articles are a gold mine of knowledge for job seekers.
If you don't have the time to go through all this content and apply the learnings to your job applications, we can ask ChatGPT to do the heavy lifting for us. For example, first, we share the link to this article where Austin analyzed over 125,000 resumes. No action needed for now; if you understand, please respond with "Yes," then share the job description of the role you're applying for.
Again, no action needed; if you understand, respond with "Yes. " Finally, based on Austin's article and the role I'm applying for, your task is to analyze my resume and give me 10 specific recommendations on how I can tailor my resume for the target role. Be as detailed as possible.
Let's think step by step. Here's my resume, and you paste your resume. We basically gave ChatGPT all the necessary information: resume best practices, the role we're applying for, and a resume to give us very targeted and actionable recommendations.
You can adapt this use case for any part of your job search journey. Just make sure, first, that the best practices come from a reputable source, and second, that you share enough information for ChatGPT to give you personalized advice. Pro tip: My favorite "Learn from the Best" example comes from Google recruiters, where they recommend all of us use the XYZ bullet point structure in our resumes.
What that means is to copy and paste every single one of your bullet points into this prompt: "You are an expert resume writer with over 20 years of experience. I will share a bullet point I have on my resume; your task is to rewrite the bullet point using this structure: I accomplished X by the measure Y that resulted in Z. Use compelling language and keep the bullet point within 50 words.
" Here's my bullet point, and you insert your bullet point. This is the lowest effort, highest impact tip in this entire video, so if you do nothing else, try this out for yourself, and I promise your resume will receive an instant upgrade. If you use Teal's Resume Builder, you can just paste this prompt into their custom prompt field next to the job description tab, meaning you don't have to toggle between ChatGPT and the Resume Builder.
Once you start landing interviews, make sure to check out this video next on how to find all relevant interview questions for any role you're applying for. See you there, and as usual, have a great one!
