When historians look back on this year, in decades hence, I suspect it will come to be viewed as the “dawn of AI” and the first time in history when the average person was exposed to the true potential of artificial intelligence — and how it could help them, specifically, in their day-to-day pursuits.
In light of this development, I’ve been experimenting heavily as of late with AI sites like ChatGPT and how they can potentially assist people with various career challenges. Not surprisingly, I’ve found that these kinds of sites do certain things amazingly well — and for other needs, they still fall quite a bit short and either fail to understsand the context of the question or provide responses that are so generic/vague they’re largely useless. By way of example, here’s a sample set of questions I recently ran through ChatGPT and how I’d grade the quality of answers given.
What are the keys to success in a job search? (Grade D)
What are the biggest mistakes to avoid in job hunting? (Grade C)
What are career alternatives for (insert name of an occupation)? (Grade B)
What are the fastest growing occupations in the US? (Grade: C)
How answer the “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?” question? (Grade: B)
How long does it take to find a new job? (Grade: B)
(if anybody wants a full explanation of why I issued these grades, just let me know…)
All of this being said, however, I’ve now stumbled on a use of ChatGPT that I think deserves the first “A Grade” I’ve given out in terms of the site’s usefulness, since it addresses a question that has been asked to me hundreds and hundreds of times by clients over the years. That question is “Matt, I know that resumes and LinkedIn profiles today need to contain all the right keywords to be effective, but how do I figure out what specific keywords are most hot/relevant/important in my own occupational field?”
Historically, beyond the keyword suggestions I’ve quickly shared with people, myself, I’ve recommended they try a number of methods to fully answer the question such as reviewing job listings, studying trade publications, and analyzing the resumes and LinkedIn profiles of competitors to ferret out some useful language.
Now, however, the solution might be as simple as asking ChatGPT the following question:
“What are the top 100 keywords in the (name of your career) field?”
When I tried this approach with numerous fields, ranging from accounting to sales to marketing to human resources, it provided an outstanding list of terminology that I could envision being incredibly useful to professionals trying to optimize their job search materials. They key, however, is to make sure you include the “top 100” designation in the question since otherwise, you’ll get a much more summarized response with not nearly as many helpful suggestions.
Again, I realize some may not find this development a big deal in the overall scheme of things, but for those of use who work regularly with job seekers and career-changers, it really is a “holy grail” in terms of solving a pesky issue that has stumped job hunters for decades. So if you’re in the process of trying to break down your experience into some useful skill/competency keywords, either to improve your written materials or explore other career paths where these skills would be transferable, give the above method a try and see what you think!
