With the recent publicity around ChatGPT, we thought we ought to address the question of whether you should use AI to help you write your CV.

These smart bots undeniably serve as great drafting tools. And if the tools are there, why not use them? But here are reasons why you should only use AI to explore ideas for your CV outline, but NEVER as the final product:

Garbage in, garbage out.

While AI is smart, when it comes to CV writing, it only works with the information you provide. Otherwise, you can’t call the AI-generated career credentials your own.

You are still required to put together your professional background, skills, experience, and accomplishments, distilling all that information to determine what to include, what to leave out, and what to play up or customise for the role you are applying to, then write effective prompts to get the bots to help you put them together.

So unless you feed ChatGPT with curated content, you can expect GIGO. And with the generated content, you should always read, edit, and validate it to ensure that it aligns with what you’d like to express.

Beware of CV embellishments by AI.

It’s also worth noting that ChatGPT might sometimes exaggerate your talents and achievements or even make up (nice) things about you. While these bio embellishments might fit within your aspirations, we’re sure that misrepresenting your credentials is not how you want to market yourself for a job.

Don’t let the bots do the talking for you. Find your voice.

The goal of AI chatbots is to answer your questions as simply as possible using their knowledge from pre-trained datasets. ChatGPT is not going to contribute thought leadership or tell you where it sees the industry going in the future.

However, that’s exactly the kind of CV and cover letter content that gives a candidate personality and differentiation. While you can always personalise your prompts, we’ve found in our experiments that although ChatGPT captured the ideas we provided, the overall AI-generated narrative still came across as rather vague, insincere, and a tad formulaic. Your tone of voice in writing is how your character comes through in your words, and it influences how the reader (in this case: the hiring manager) perceives your intentions. Is generic, robotic, and impersonal what you're hoping to convey?

ChatGPT cover letters are decent. But where’s the personalisation?

You might already know that you can copy and paste a job ad into ChatGPT and get it to write you a keyword-optimised cover letter for the job. But before you do that, imagine the number of similar cover letters HR would have to filter if everyone is getting the same help for the same job opening.

Furthermore, as a reader, would you prefer to read an engaging personal story or statements after statements of excessive, forced use of keywords? After all, a cover letter is a letter addressed to a person. So write like you’re having a human conversation with your potential employer and not like you’re submitting a test paper to score points.

ChatGPT cover letters are great for template reference, but customisation and research are still your responsibilities. If you take the time to do your research honestly and diligently, no ChatGPT response can tell a better story than you about YOU in your cover letter.

How do recruiters feel about candidates getting AI to write their CVs?

By now, hiring managers and recruiters would have developed a seasoned and hypervigilant eye for spotting AI content in CVs. Some of the obvious giveaways are the lack of specificity, such as the mention of a "proven track record of success" without providing specific examples to support the claim, as well as repetitive phrasing. Worse if they find your CV or cover letter read the same as another in the pile.

Is it a dealbreaker? Will you be disqualified? We know that recruiters have split opinions on the topic. As such, it’s best to err on the side of caution and use your discretion.

AI vs CV writing services.

We agree that AI technologies, with the right prompts, can do a half-decent job in providing CV outlines, guidelines, and copy-edit suggestions.

But if it is something more that you are looking for, such as:

• someone who will dedicate the time to get to know you, understand your career goals, explore your talents, draw out your achievements, and work with you to develop your value proposition.
• someone with industry insights who knows what success looks like in your space and what hiring managers in your domain are looking for.
• someone who can guide you in reflecting on your career development and finding your thought leadership voice.

Then engaging the professional services of a CV writer might be for you.

At WickedCV, we are as much about personal branding, consultation, collaboration, and guiding you to curate your career path as we are about CV writing.

Get in touch with us today to find out more.