Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized many aspects of our lives, and the job market is no exception.
We’ve already explored “AI and Machine Learning in Recruiting: What Job Seekers Need to Know” to give you an overview of what’s going on.
We’ve also gone over “How to Use ChatGPT to Write a Great Cover Letter” and “AI-Powered Cover Letter Enhancements,” where we detail how AI can help you create effective cover letters.
We are also planning to do a deep dive of how to use AI on resumes in the near future.
If you haven’t read those articles, read them first. They will give you the practical basics about how AI is radically changing the job market.
For this article, we will focus on the bigger picture and the core principles of using AI to help your application materials – resume and cover letter – for getting high-value positions.
Understanding the Power of AI for Career Success
AI has the potential to transform your job applications by automating mundane tasks, identifying critical keywords, and even optimizing language to align with the preferences of both Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and human readers (hiring managers and gatekeepers).
That, as you’ll see below, is a big deal…
Why You Should Leverage AI
Many job applicants struggle with customizing their resumes and cover letters to each job application – which is becoming practically mandatory. This is where AI excels, doing the repetitive and predictable work for you, saving you an insane amount of time.
Additionally, AI allows you to fine-tune your writing style and structure to ensure clarity, conciseness, and persuasiveness. You may be a better writer than AI, but when you use AI, you are a better writer than yourself.
So… Using AI in your resumes and cover letters has a lot of benefits.
And while all this is fine… Perhaps most importantly: your competition is already using AI, meaning, you need to start using it too.
Core Principles for Using AI in Resume and Cover Letter Creation
1. Customization at Scale
Customizing your resume significantly increases your chances. According to research, up to 63% of recruiters prefer resumes personalized to the job listing. Moreover, another study found that resumes submitted within the first week of a job posting had a 60% higher chance of being noticed.
Luckily… AI allows you to quickly customize your resume and cover letter, helping you get your application in faster, and with less effort. By using tools such as ChatGPT or Grammarly, you can adapt your wording based on the job description, company website, as well as any other information about the company online (i.e. social media, press releases, etc.)
2. Keyword Optimization
Many companies use ATS to scan resumes and cover letters for keywords. It is estimated that ATS rejects up to 75% of resumes before they reach a human recruiter.
If your application doesn’t include specific phrases that match the job posting, and you send it in through the front door, it will not reach a human. AI tools can scan job descriptions, identify and put the most important keywords into your resume – assuming you instruct these tools to prepare your resume for an ATS.
(Pro tip: while using AI to improve your chances with an ATS is good, bypassing ATSs as well as HR gatekeepers, and reaching hiring managers directly is much better. This requires a combination of networking and/or The Warm Application process, which you should opt for before creating an AI built resume for an ATS.)
3. Enhanced Clarity and Conciseness
AI can identify areas in your resume or cover letter where you might be overly verbose or unclear. These tools can recommend better ways to convey information, which is essential in a competitive job market.
Keep in mind, the majority application materials prepared by the majority of applicants is garbage, and using corporate speak is a surefire way to get your application trashed – unfortunately, most AI systems spit out corporate speak garbage by default…
We recommend our students to ask AI to “eliminate all corporate speak and use tangible, concrete, material, actionable and specific language”. (Hint: You may want to lift that quoted prompt and use it in our own efforts. 😉)
Best Practices for AI-Enhanced Resumes and Cover Letters
Here are a couple of rules of thumb…
1. Start With Human Input
AI works best when you provide a strong, original foundation that is based off of your own words.
Start with a basic version of your resume and cover letter based on your experiences, using one of our guides. Then, let AI optimize it by suggesting improvements in language, format, and keyword placement.
2. Review the AI’s Output Critically
AI is a tool, not a replacement for human own judgment… yet.
And even when it becomes a replacement for human judgment, it should never become a replacement for your own judgment – just as you would never let any other person’s judgment replace your own, do not let AI replace your judgment either.
AI can help you streamline and enhance your application materials, but you need to review its suggestions critically. Ensure that your unique voice, accomplishments, and personal brand remain congruent. Avoid blindly accepting every AI recommendation. And remain grounded in truth. (Remember: your resume is a public material, and lies on your resume might come back and haunt you in the most inconvenient of circumstances, when you least expect it…)
3. Update and Refine Your Materials Regularly
Your resume and cover letter should evolve with your career. This means staying up to date with trends, hypes and shiny objects – especially the kind of shiny objects that recruiters fall for, as well as the hypes companies pay disproportionate sums of money for.
Remember: demand is the master key to your career. “Go where the puck is going”, and you’ll retire in style.
In this context, AI can help you to update your core resume and cover letter (core resume being the template one that gets customized for each application) quickly, by scanning news for industry trends, relevant keywords, and best practices.
With AI, regularly updating your materials takes minutes rather than hours. We recommend you update them once a month.
Advanced Tips for AI-Enhanced Resumes and Cover Letters
Chances are, you’re not here for fluffy, surface-level advice…
Let’s share with you a few more of our techniques that can be shared over the clearnet…
1. AI-Driven Personalization
Customization is the first step. Personalization is the second.
AI lets you personalize your resume and cover letter at scale, without ever sounding generic. Here’s how:
Use AI to rewrite different versions of your resume for different types of companies. Tech giants, for example, want a different vibe than a fintech startup, and a fintech startup wants a different language than a government policy think-tank.
They all have their preferences… And humans being humans, those preferences rule their minds…
Ask AI to shift not just keywords, but your tone, the arc of your accomplishments, your career narrative, and the way you present your soft vs. hard skills.
Example: “Reframe my experience for a fast-moving, highly competitive startup environment. Highlight adaptability, risk-taking, and agility.”
For every job, you should use a prompt like the one above, where you highlight the top three values of the company – usually these values are blatantly advertised on their about page.
2. Train AI to Mimic Specific Hiring Managers or Company Cultures
People will say “tailor your cover letter to the company.” Sure, but what does tailor mean? And where does it end?
The truth is, it never ends. You can get as specific as you have the capability for. And with AI, your capabilities are uncanny. Even spooky.
What if you could tailor your materials to match the hiring manager’s exact language? AI can do that. Scrape LinkedIn posts, blog articles, and public talks from your potential boss. Feed it to AI and ask it to analyze their communication style and tone. Then, get the AI to rewrite your cover letter or resume using their exact phrasing and style.
Example: Let’s say the VP of Engineering at a tech company loves using phrases like “high-performance teams” and “disruptive innovation.” AI will pick that up, and your application will echo their voice.
Just a word of caution: while some managers are honest in their communication, others are just full of it. You need to use your best judgement to see if the terms like “disruptive innovation” is just BS they are spewing to impress their boss, or something they genuinely believe.
Discrimination comes with experience and wisdom. When unsure if a phrase is actually valuable or corporatepeak BS, your best bet is to ask your mentors.
3. AI-Generated “Experience”
Lack the traditional credentials or “relevant experience” for a specific job?
First, read our Instant Track Record Formula.
Next, use AI to create an alternative professional narrative.
AI can take your unconventional experiences – freelancing, side projects, personal growth, unrelated jobs – and reframe them in such a way that they may even appear like they are worth more than formal employment.
This might sound fishy on the surface, but… Play around with a few prompts and you’ll see how effective this can be. Surprisingly, AI tools are capable of exhibiting a type of creativity which is untainted by human biases and context. As a result, just as a child would, AI tools can create extraordinary narratives that you wouldn’t have thought of.
(Pro tip: One of the strongest managerial resumes we’ve seen belonged to a stay at home mom. You’d be surprised how much room there is for spin in building application materials. Don’t sell yourself short.)
Ultimately, by turning “non-traditional” paths into valuable, credible stories, you can use AI to rewrite how your experience is perceived by recruiters.
Final Thoughts: AI is Your Career Weapon
Give it a couple months, everyone you’re competing with will be using AI. It will become, practically speaking, mandatory.
Fortunately, using AI in conventional ways will just get people conventional results. And most people are embarrassingly conventional.
This means, there may be hope for you yet!
If you want competitive advantage, you have to change your thinking – your approach, your attitude and your perspective.
The average candidate is stuck playing by yesterday’s rules. But you?
Are you?
That’s the most important lesson behind this article.
The advantage isn’t just in using AI – it’s in how you use it smarter, faster, and more ruthlessly than anyone else.
Just like everything else we do in this zero sum primate game we call “a career”.
It’s all about doing it better than your competition.