How To Use ChatGPT To Write A Resume – Your Ultimate Student Career Advisor (SCA) Guide

We asked ChatGPT to write a resume for us. It was terrible! We then decided to work with ChatGPT to write a resume together. The result was terrific! In this post,Ahmed Elsayed ’23, Student Career Advisor,  will dive into the details of that experiment. We’ll answer how you can  write a captivating resume and/or a cover letter using the help of ChatGPT. But before we begin, how can you be sure that ChatGPT didn’t write this post?

First, what’s a strong resume?

A strong resume includes a comprehensive skill set in addition to rich experiences. With careful writing, you can transform your experience into an extremely rich one — one that portrays your skills, qualifications, and work-ethic. Thus, when writing your bullet points for an experience (think job, project, team sport, etc.), we use the content-rich bullet point principle. In short, the content-rich bullet point principle focuses on four key elements: what have you done? How have you done it? (aka what skills, knowledge, learning, etc.), why have you done it? (aka importance and work-ethic), and what’s the impact of that task? (aka measuring how good of an employee/team player you are). To read more about content-rich bullet points, please use the following link to access our Ultimate Resume Toolkit guide on the CCEC website: Link to Ultimate Resume Toolkit.

Can ChatGPT be leveraged to significantly reduce the time to have a resume ready for a review?

*drum roll* Introducing ChatGPT: Link to ChatGPT

 

The SCA Guide to Use ChatGPT:

Before we begin, we need to acknowledge the limitations of using ChatGPT. The AI application is capable of generating generic resumes and cover letters. It can give you summaries and relatively good results.However, employers are looking for unique, personalized experiences and stories. While ChatGPT can generate any story, it won’t be able to generate your authentic story unless you manipulate your inputs. This guide is intended to show you how you can manipulate your input (“the seed”) such that you achieve “almost ready” results. This post will ask ChatGPT to write about the “Student Career Advisor” experience.

First: Start Generic and use a reference point.

We will use the job description from the official Whitman website.

 

Okay! Good Start! However, we can see that those bullet points are very basic. There isn’t any substantial content in them. Well, we can fix this.

Second: plant seeds, specify.

First Seed: length and structure

The general advice is to have 3-4 bullet points for each experience. Let’s ask ChatGPT to do that.

Ok! Good start. However, we notice a few things:

• The first bullet point is useless. Serving a student career advisor is already implied.
• The second and the third one are good, but they lack context. They need to be more polished.
• The last one is good; however, the second half is focused on the applicant, not the experience.

Second seed: Content

We will start by fixing the second bullet point:

Assisted students with job applications, Whitman Internship Grant applications, and provided feedback on resumes and cover letters.

We want our resume and bullet point to highlight leadership skills. We want metric data and statistics. We also want impact. Finally, we want it to be more concise. Well, let’s ask ChatGPT for that.

Here is our product:

Demonstrated strong leadership and resourcefulness skills as a Student Career Advisor, assisting over 50 students with job applications, Whitman Internship Grant applications, and providing feedback on resumes and cover letters, resulting in a 30% increase in successful job placements and internship applications.

Indeed, this is a way better bullet point than the initial one. However, it needs a little bit more polishing. Here are the general comments about that bullet point:

• The first half of this bullet point is redundant: We do not need to tell the recruiter what skills we demonstrated, but we need to show that skill. Therefore, we adjust the bullet point to the following.
• The use of the word “assisted” is not as strong as some words like mentored, supported, reviewed. How about using the word mentored.
• Whitman Internship Grant application and job applications are kind of similar. They wouldn’t be very distinguishable for an outside employer.
• The metric data is generic, so please adjust them according to your personal experience.

Let’s fix that! Following these comments, we get the following result:

Mentored over 50 students, assisting them with job search and job applications, providing feedback on resumes and cover letters, resulting in a 30% increase in successful job placements and internship applications.

We move to fix the third one:

Facilitated connections with the Career Pathfinder and/or Whitman Connect, and provided guidance on Handshake features.

We want to highlight technological skills in addition to the ability to provide “guidance.” So, we ask chat GPT to highlight mentorship and technological knowledge.

Here is out product:

Leveraged advanced technological knowledge to mentor and guide fellow students as a Student Career Advisor, facilitating over 100 connections with the Career Pathfinder and Whitman Connect tools, resulting in a 40% increase in students’ self-reported career plan satisfaction. Provided expert guidance on Handshake features, resulting in a 25% increase in students’ successful utilization of the platform to secure internships and job opportunities.

Again, this is a better bullet point, but it is not quite “ready” yet. Here are some comments to improve:

• It has some redundant information in it; for example, saying “as a Student Career Advisor.” Having both “Provided expert guidance” and. “mentor and guide fellow students.”
• It’s a little wordy. There are a lot of words to achieve a simple result. We can omit “Leveraged advanced technological knowledge” and combine that with using Handshake features, Career Pathfinder, and Whitman connect.
• The statistics are generic, so we will adjust them to match our personal data.

Following these comments, we get the following result:

Provided expert guidance and mentorship to 100 fellow students on Handshake features, the Career Pathfinder, and Whitman’s Professional networking website, resulting in a 40% increase in students’ self-reported career plan satisfaction and 25% successful utilization of our online resources to secure internship and job opportunities.

Now, we move to fix the fourth and last one:

Conducted drop-in hours and scheduled 1:1 appointments to address students’ individual career-related needs, developing strong communication and interpersonal skills through regular interactions with peers and staff members.

This is already a pretty good bullet point. However, one problem is that it focuses on what the candidate has developed (“developing strong communication and interpersonal skills”) rather than what the employer has gained. Most employers care about what you bring to their team, not what they bring to your personal development. Let’s ask ChatGPT to focus on providing help in appointments and mentorship skills.

Here is our modified version:

Mentored and supported a diverse range of students as a Student Career Advisor, conducting over 50 drop-in hours and scheduling 30+ 1:1 appointments to address individual career-related needs. Achieved a 90% satisfaction rate among students, as indicated by feedback surveys, and received accolades from staff members for exceptional mentorship skills.

This looks really good. It has most of the things we need; however, there are a couple of things to be modified. Here are some comments to improve this bullet point:

• Remove “As a Student Career Advisor,” since it is redundant.
• Receiving accolades from staff members is good, but it is not part of the experience. It doesn’t showcase a specific skill or an impact. It’s good to mention in an interview, but for the sake of a resume, we try to only focus on what the candidate has achieved and can offer.
• The metric data is generic, so we will modify them according to our personal experience.

Following these comments, we get the following result:

Mentored a diverse range of students, hosting over 50 drop-in hours and 30+ one-on-one appointments to address individual career-related needs, achieving over 90% satisfaction rate among students as indicated by feedback surveys.

Third: Look at everything together, make sure not to repeat yourself.

 

Student Career Advisor, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA   (Start – End Date) 

• Mentored over 50 students, assisting them with job search and job applications, providing feedback on resumes and cover letters, resulting in a 30% increase in successful job placements and internship applications.
• Provided expert guidance and mentorship to 100 fellow students on Handshake features, the Career Pathfinder, and Whitman’s Professional networking website, resulting in a 40% increase in students’ self-reported career plan satisfaction and 25% successful utilization of our online resources to secure internship and job opportunities.
• Mentored a diverse range of students, hosting over 50 drop-in hours and 30+ one-on-one appointments to address individual career-related needs, achieved over 90% satisfaction rate among students as indicated by feedback surveys.

This looks really great! However, we notice that the first and the last bullet point share a lot of similarity, both touching on mentorship and student needs. How can we distinguish between both both them? Let’s ask ChatGPT to do that:

That looks awesome! We can clearly see the distinction now. However, there are small areas for improvement in our previous version:

• For the first bullet point, we would remove “Demonstrated exceptional mentorship skills” since it is already implied throughout the experience.
• We also look at all “action words” in the experience. We don’t want to repeat ourselves because we want to capture the entire scope of the experience. So, we will use “mentorship, coaching, and guidance.”

Applying those comments, our final product now looks like the following:

Student Career Advisor, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA     (Start – End Date) 

• Leveraged expertise in job search strategies and resume/cover letter feedback to mentor and assist over 50 students with job applications and job search, resulting in a 30% increase in successful job placements and internship applications.
• Provided expert guidance and mentorship to 100 fellow students on Handshake features, the Career Pathfinder, and Whitman’s Professional networking website, resulting in a 40% increase in students’ self-reported career plan satisfaction and 25% successful utilization of our online resources to secure internship and job opportunities.
• Coached a diverse range of students, hosting over 50 drop-in hours and 30+ one-on-one appointments, to offer individual career-specific advice and guidance, achieving over 90% satisfaction rate among students as indicated by feedback surveys.

Fourth: Reflect.

Throughout this process, I used my extensive knowledge as a student career advisor in order to modify the AI-generated bullet points. Coming up with constructive comments and evaluating overall structure can be challenging for some individuals. However, this shouldn’t be a challenge when you have student career advisors and career coaches ready to help you! Once you are done with your resume, please come meet with us and tell us all about it. We might learn a new thing about how to manipulate ChatGPT, but for sure you will leave the meeting with a better Resume!

You can schedule an appointment using the following link:

Link to schedule a Handshake appointment