Getting Hired in the ChatGPT Age

See Also

This is a companion piece to Interviewing with AI, which covers how AI has changed the interview process itself.

For the record I’m a Anthropic fan, but I think ChatGPT makes for the best title.

The world of hiring is really dominated by AI at the moment. LinkedIn Premium whole advertising strategy at the moment is how it comes with AI tools to help you get hired. Tailoring your resume, telling you if you are a good fit for roles, etc. I’m sure on the recruiting side its about the same, I’ve seen on Reddit and Hacker News people talking about using LLMs to vet applications because they are absolutely drowning in applicants right now.

So the arms race is thriving, boths sides are using the same tech to counter each other and everyone is losing. LLMs are being utilized at every step of the process too. Candidates are using it to write their base resume, tailoring their resume, filling in the application, generating cover letters, communicating over email, studying for roles, and even using it to cheat on coding interviews.

Unfortunately whether you want to be included or not, if you want a job today you have to play ball to some extent. Do you trust the cheapest LLM on the market to not trash your resume because you missed a required keyword or tech? Previously I thought it was a given that I have experience with the Microsoft Office Suite, but if a job description calls it out you better spell it out in your resume. I’ve had a few instances where I got the email saying I was denied for a role before the “Thanks for applying” email came in. So, they probably came to a decision the moment I uploaded my resume. This was definitely happening to some extent before, but now its easy for a hiring manager to write up a small paragraph of requirements that an AI model uses as a pass/fail for candidates. Some models are pretty harsh.

Standing Out

I don’t agree with this state of affairs, but there is no going back. That said, being the human in the loop has to come with some advantages. Especially today there really aren’t that many flavors of LLM on the market, and for tasks like this I would argue that nobody is using on premises models. So, odds are ChatGPT is doing the entire loop here. ChatGPT is the most consistent model in my experience so it shouldn’t be difficult to learn the quirks.

The most value I’ve found for appearing human is really pushing the barrier on formality. Ask ChatGPT to write an email to a recruiter or hiring manager with any other context and your are going to get the most soul crushing, boring, corporate email with no semblance of personality. This tone surely has its place, but when you are just a number with a pdf resume attached standing out goes really far.

You definitely don’t want to send emails like you would texts to your best friend, but being concise and friendly goes so far. For example I gave ChatGPT-4o the following prompt:

Write me an email to follow up with a recruiter after an introductory call

Output:

Dear [Recruiter's Name],

I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to speak with me on [date]. I truly appreciated the opportunity to learn more about [company name] and the [position name] role.

Our conversation further solidified my enthusiasm for the position and the chance to contribute to [specific aspect of the role or company]. I am particularly excited about [specific detail discussed during the call], and I believe my skills in [relevant skills] align well with the team's goals.

Please let me know if there are any next steps I should prepare for or additional information I can provide. I look forward to staying in touch and hope to have the opportunity to work together.

Thank you again for your time and consideration.

Best regards,
[Your Full Name]
[Your LinkedIn Profile or Contact Information, if applicable]

This is pretty terrible in my opinion. Honestly making me read all of that just to mean “thanks” is very disrespecful to my time. Instead I would just do:

Hey [Recruiter],

Thanks for chatting with me this afternoon, I really appreciate your time. I'm looking forward to talking to more of the team, please let me know if you need anything else from me!

Thanks,

Anson Biggs
<If you already chatted on the phone there is no need for an extensive signature>

These emails are the same content, but one respects the other persons time, and shows that I’m a human.

After sending an email like that its really crazy how much the other person can light up sometimes. All the sudden the air is let back into the room and we can be candid and real with each other. Why should they bother to read something that you didn’t take the time to write?

Resume Building

If your work is in-depth and niche, an AI is absolutely going to do a worse job than you at making a resume. It is really tempting to just give it bullet points and ask it to generate something but that is doing yourself a huge disservice. Your first draft that you feel is good enough to send to a company should be made completely by you. Only you know what is relevant and needs to be emphasized for your work.

Once you’ve finished your draft AI can help a lot. The biggest obstacle in my opinion is that AI wants to make you happy so it will lie to you if you ask “Is my resume good?”, its always going to say yes and hype you up. If you want real feedback, take the job description of the role you want, paste it in with your resume and ask, “Is the candidate a good fit for this role?“. All of the sudden you get in-depth feedback on where you are lacking and what doesn’t matter. Use this to mold your resume, highlight things that are imporant, make sure every detail the job description mentions is on your resume.

You could use this to make a resume for every job that you want, but I think the current market is too heavily a numbers game. At least for the work I want. Companies are incentivized to post more roles than they can hire for, so a lot of the roles you are applying for don’t exist. Since its a buyers market it also means that the odds of someone with exactly your skillset, but twice the experience applying to the same role is highly likely. The only way to make progress is to apply everywhere, unless you are a rockstar or super niche.