More job seekers are using AI to help prepare job application documents – but make sure what is produced is correct, experts stress. And if asked in an interview, be honest about it and clear on how you used AI to improve your work.GETTY IMAGES
Job seekers may find that artificial intelligence tools can help bring clarity to their resumes and cover letters. But how clear do you need to be in a job interview if you’re asked if you got help from ChatGPT?
“Honesty is always the better strategy. You should answer with a combination of transparency of confidence,” says Sachi Kittur, vice-president of human experience and innovation at the Human Resources Professionals Association (HRPA), which regulates HR professionals in Ontario.
“A resume and cover letter are deeply personal, and a tool like ChatGPT is no substitute for authenticity. I would simply tell the interviewers that I used AI to polish the language and structure, but that every story, idea and accomplishment is mine,” Ms. Kittur says.
“Being honest fosters trust. But if you’re saying that you used AI, it’s also important to explain how you used it,” says Lama Shaath, a Vancouver-based career coach and member of Career Professionals of Canada, a non-profit organization for career development professionals.
She says it’s okay explain how you used ChatGPT to refine your language and improve your phrasing, not that you used it to write everything for you. “It’s usually apparent if a candidate has memorized answers that don’t genuinely affect their knowledge or experience, which can happen if you rely on a document that you didn’t actually write yourself,” Ms. Shaath says.
Ms. Kittur says she considers AI tools to be in the same category as more traditional computerized tools such as spellcheck, formatting software or calculator or spreadsheet apps. But, “AI is not a substitute for authenticity,” she says.
Relying too much on AI tools can lead to mistakes, misunderstandings and more serious legal problems, says Daniel Lublin, one of the founding partners of Whitten and Lublin Employment Lawyers, a Toronto firm that focuses on workplace disputes, and a regular Globe and Mail contributor.
“If you use a tool like AI, you have to be responsible for the content that goes into it. You have to check it and make sure it’s accurate. If it’s not, even after you have gotten the job, you can be terminated, and that can happen even years later,” Mr. Lublin says.
AI can sometimes “hallucinate” – make up misleading or false information based on the data it has been fed. Writing in the Harvard Business Review in June 2023, entrepreneur and author Robb Wilson described how ChatGPT “made incorrect guesses about my company, … especially related to funding and operations” when he tapped the program to write up a draft resume based on certain information. When he told ChatGPT that he had once worked as a film sound editor, it said, wrongly, on the resume it produced, that he was a film school graduate.
It’s important to check for and correct these kinds of mistakes because not only can they get you fired years after you have worked in a job, but they could also leave you liable for all the costs a company incurred to hire you in the first place, Mr. Lublin says.
“People sometimes do exaggerate on their resumes, for example, when they worked somewhere for eight months they round it up to a year. But there’s a huge difference between that and listing credentials that aren’t true. Ultimately you, not the AI tool, are responsible for the accuracy,” he says.
“If you’re disclosing that you used ChatGPT to help with your job application materials, you should do it in a way that shows off your problem-solving skills,” says Murat Kristal, a professor and special adviser of AI and business analytics at York University’s Schulich School of Business in Toronto.
“You want to demonstrate how you used it to make the finished product better. You should be able to show the critical thinking skills you used, that you had the ideas and AI just helped you organize them better,” he says.
In his Harvard Business Review article, Mr. Wilson noted ChatGPT’s errors spurred him on. “Interestingly, the details that ChatGPT got wrong inspired me to improve my resume and think outside the box while editing the draft.”
“The placeholders or gaps in information pushed me to consider more deeply the details I wanted to present and how those details would land with a recruiter or hiring manager.” He says, for example, that adding information about how he bootstrapped his company by using his own resources could signal to a potential employer how he was a self-starter.
The question of whether you used AI for your job-seeking material comes up more and more often these days, Ms. Kittur says.
“Pay attention to the interviewers’ cues. But interviews are two-way streets. If your interviewers are dismissive of tools that help people work smarter and better, you should ask yourself whether that’s the kind of place where you want to work and grow your career,” she adds.