Four ways AI can help your job search — and save you hours of work

AI can make your job search faster and scale it up real quick. Here are four ways to use it, and what to look for if you do.

Optimizing your resume for applicant tracking systems

Many hiring managers and recruiters rely on algorithms and applicant tracking systems (ATS) to scan resumes for keywords and shortlist candidates. Within seconds, your submission could make the “let’s schedule an interview” pile or get cued up for a “thanks but no thanks” auto-generated email once the posting closes. AI tools can help you optimize your resume for matching keywords to the job posting itself. SkillSyncer and Jobscan are two such tools that can assess and suggest what needs to change for the ATS to pick out your resume from digital the crowd.

It might also be the case that a redo of your resume is in order — say you’re pivoting careers or you’ve simply got a resume that isn’t working (maybe it’s been awhile since you’ve even looked at it). AI tools can be used to build a draft of a customized resume — you input the job you’re going after and it will render back bullets that contain those keywords about the relevant skills, and it can even write the whole thing. Certain AIs will allow you to select a template, too.

A word of caution here is these are helpful drafts, but you’ll still need to get in there and customize. Kickresume, Resume.io and Rezi are three very popular resume-builder AI tools.

You can transfer all this goodness into your LinkedIn profile — if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile, make one pronto, and make it great!

Job matching

This could save you dozens of hours, however it only works if you’re clear on what you want, and your resume and LinkedIn are optimized.

AI job-matching platforms take your skills, experience, desired corporate culture, style of work (remote, in-office or hybrid), location and interests and automatically pair you with opportunities. Some of the AI tools can even make suggestions about job types based on your working and personality traits. Kickresume has one such tool called Pyjama that focuses on remote-work opportunities. I found the Talentprise AI tool particularly impressive as it’s comprehensive, from matching you with opportunities to proceeding with the application itself.

Custom cover letters

This part of the process was always annoying to me because it sucked up so much time having to customize every single cover letter for every single opportunity. There’s so much support here from AI tools like Cover Letter Copilot that uses ChatGPT to CoverDoc.AI to Cover Letter AI — yes, the names of these tools really do sound the same. Kickresume and Rezi can also be used for cover letters.

You’ll need to feed in basic information about the job you’re applying for, typically a link to your LinkedIn profile (all freshened up, of course), and work through their prompts. If you’re a pro at AI prompts already, you can make a cover letter with basically any generative AI.

Whatever you do, don’t fire off these drafts to a hiring manager before you’ve edited the content to really make it your own so that it stands out.

All the emails for networking, thank-yous and followups

Open AI like ChatGPT is a quick solution for nicely written emails (no grammar and spelling mistakes) requesting coffee meetups, thank-you notes for those meetings, and followups. The prompts can be as simple as “write me a short and friendly email requesting time to meet and learn more about xyz job opportunity at xyz company.” Happy with the result? Copy-paste into your email, customize the message a bit so it matches your tone and personality, and fire it off.

Some job-seekers use Google Sheets to compile a list of their key networking contacts, their respective job titles and companies, the link to the respective postings, and ask tools like GPT for Sheets to draft up a whole set of unique messages all at once for each hiring manager.

There’s so much more AI can support you with, from suggesting interview questions for you to practice responding to (and the AI can provide immediate feedback) to offer-negotiation techniques (one of my favourite wage-comparison sites, Payscale, leverages AI to glean compensation data for positions).

Remember though, the hiring manager doesn’t want a robot, they want a human, and that person might just be you. Be yourself in this process. It’s the only way you’ll be able to really connect with your potential new employer.

This article was originally published in The Star. Lesley-Anne Scorgie is a Toronto-based personal finance columnist and a freelance contributing columnist for the Star.