How Do I Use AI for Applying for Jobs?
That’s easy. I use it for grammar and spell checking for cover letters and my resume.
Why do I limit it to these specific uses? I am a real person who at least hopes that job applications will be read by other real people. LLM’s can’t replicate the way I talk or the way I write. The English that they generate is not my English. Not to mention, an LLM-generated cover letter suggests that I don’t care about who the employer is; I’m just going to apply for anything with matching keywords in a job description. I am writing this in response to a post that I saw recently on LinkedIn where someone was advertising their service that can supposedly apply for 1000 jobs on your behalf at a time and get you up to 50 interviews. I’ve been unemployed and desperate before. I understand the need to find a job ASAP, but I don’t think mass spamming is the way to go. It’s a trap that can get you labeled negatively in the eyes of a hiring manager.
In my opinion, if you want the job, you will at least put out the effort to write a (mostly) customized cover letter. It’s okay if the cover letter is mostly a form letter that’s been customized for a specific job. What’s important is that is’t from a real person who wrote it and customized so that it addresses the specific requirements in the job posting. Eventually, LLMs will get smarter and will be able to impersonate a normal person’s writing style perfectly and give a perfect response. That day is coming. When it does, I think it will get tougher to tell LLM-speak from normal English. I also think interviews will get tougher as a result, and we’ll see more creative problem-solving challenges before you talk to a real person.
To sum it up, I don’t use LLMs to write for me when applying for jobs because I want the person who reads it to know that I am a real person and not just a bot. In the same way, I want to show the potential employer that they are someone that I want to work for, and I’ve done my due diligence to know who they are, what they do, and why I am interested in working for them.
One last thing, if you’re not a native English-speaker, having an LLM write for you might seem like an amazing tool. I completely understand! I’ve been learning a second language for years, and I’m still not very good. However, I believe that the imperfection in the language you are applying in is still better than LLM-generated text that isn’t you.