Most jobseekers can agree that building a resume is stressful — and that, unfortunately, what you’re putting on display might not be effective for every job. 

What’s written in your CV is the first impression employers get of you. Confusing wording or spelling mistakes can send the wrong message, lead to a misunderstanding, or, even worse, result in a missed opportunity. 

Pressured to fit your work into one page, you might omit details that the HR recruiter who’s glossing over it would have loved. What's the best way to make sure your sentences are correct, your idioms accurate, and have a bunch of versions on hand without giving up your sanity?  ChatGPT might be it.

How can you use ChatGPT to level up your resume?

Out of all the use cases that ChatGPT has, including getting help to hot-wire cars, getting lists of torrent sites, or starting a business with $100, upgrading your resume seems to be one of the least explored. And yes, ChatGPT is helpful for that, too: the darling chatbot from OpenAI can help you build a new and improved resume to land the job you want. It’s a very apt assistant to let you customise your profile to cater to specific requests.

Just in case, we’re going over the instructions for you to start using ChatGPT. You’ll need to head to their website, where you will be prompted to either log in or sign up, depending on whether you have already created a username. Once you’ve logged in, you’ll find a window where you can send a message —  a prompt —  to the AI, and it will, in turn, generate a response.

Why should you use AI for your resume?

There are several reasons why you should join the AI hype and use it to boost your resume up. Some of those are:

1. It saves time

ChatGPT is a useful ally if you're in a hurry and need to send over a current, accurate CV right away that answers some keywords you noticed in the job description.

2. It’s free

Using the basic version of ChatGPT is free.

3. It’s a new perspective

Two heads think better than one, even if one of the heads isn't really a head. You can get insights and recommendations from ChatGPT that you might have yet to think of on your own — new ideas for your career, improved wording, and more importantly, fresh insight.

4. It fits your needs

The fact that ChatGPT can help you create a first draft doesn’t mean you have to stick with what it produced. Once it gives out a response, you can keep on giving prompts and improving, building upon the initial output it generated. You can request that it highlights or expands on a specific set of skills, that it adjusts to a job description you provide, or that it helps you target a specific job market.

Before prompting ChatGPT for a resume, do this

We just mentioned how ChatGPT can accommodate your needs with each message, so if you don’t like the first answer, you can always fine-tune your prompt. It’s true that ChatGPT is (almost) always online and always available, but, for your sake, treat it like a person to whom you can ask something only once — like a company’s usually reserved CEO or a university dean. Like in those professional scenarios, before prompting ChatGPT, you should know what you’ll be requesting (although you can always start again, fortunately). For time-saving purposes, follow these steps to get your new resume right:

Find outstanding resumes for your reference

The first step before diving into ChatGPT is finding, on either X, Reddit, a blog, or from a colleague, a good resume that you find inspiring and, most importantly, a resume that an HR professional has called outstanding. This will establish a benchmark for what to look for that you can use as a guide for your resume. 

Know yourself enough to prevent fabrications from slipping in

Once you've found a suitable resume template to reference, you'll need to identify which achievements and accomplishments you want to underline in your CV. 

It's also important to include specific metrics about your success — did your volunteer work help how many families have a better place to live, for example? Did your work on solar panels impact how many households? Watch out for AI’s hallucinations; they’ll make up facts and bring up percentages (“I helped my company grow 45% year-on-year; the company was Microsoft”) like if they were true, and you’ll be confounded in a few days to realise that, well, you didn’t put that into a prompt. But they still do it. And lying on your resume is only an acceptable strategy if you’re conscious about it — not if a software programme is doing it for you.

Know your employer

A great way to make sure you land the position you want is by going through job descriptions for jobs that are interesting or appealing to you. This will ensure that the content of your resume aligns with the outlines potential employers put out when looking for their ideal candidate. Job sites are an excellent source to check how recruiters and employers put their job descriptions together, and you can lift patterns from their requirements. Many companies use ATS, Applicant Tracking Systems, to help them filter candidates for the recruiting process; having the job description's keywords incorporated into your resume can be a game-changer when it comes to getting noticed by these systems.

Find a good resume template

If the outstanding resume we mentioned in the first tip was about the content, then this tip is about the presentation. And you don’t have to reinvent the wheel — you can find great resume layouts online. Whether you’re updating your curriculum or making a new one from scratch, it’s important to pick out a good template that is visually appealing, easy to read, and doesn’t subtract from the image you're trying to convey. If you’re starting from scratch or if you just want to give your old CV a makeover, there are many sites with good templates to use as a reference and complete with your information.

Here’s a list of five popular websites and tools to find good templates for your resume:

• Microsoft Word Templates: You can access them directly from Word by opening a new document and searching for “Resume” in the template gallery.
• Google Docs Templates: Open Google Docs, click on “Template Gallery,” and search for “Resume” to find different styles.
• Zety
• Canva
• Indeed Resume Builder

Some of these tools could incorporate GPT AIs into their workflow, so check them often since you might not need to jump between tools.

Tips and tricks for getting the best out of ChatGPT

AI is marketed as being incredibly streamlined, but that’s not a fact. You need to check on it, step by step. You need some tricks to get the best out of it. These are the most important.

Don’t rely completely on ChatGPT for your answers

As counterintuitive as it might seem, ChatGPT is not infallible and can sometimes be inaccurate or just plain wrong. You will need to proofread the content it generates and make sure that it’s adequate and that it adapts to what you are looking for in your resume. It might use ambiguous language, have inconsistencies or phrases that are awkward, and don’t add to the overall value of your resume. While ChatGPT is a valuable tool to get ideas, check your spelling, and improve the composition of your CV, make sure you don’t just enter information and print out whatever comes out because that could easily backfire. Remember the “I helped the company grow 45%” example? What would happen if that made-up fact reached a senior manager who doesn’t need to fact-check it to know it’s bogus?

On the other hand, keep in mind that there are key elements only a human can bring to the table. An AI-generated resume can be squeaky clean grammatically, but — if you don’t proofread and add your style — it could also turn out to be tedious and bland rather than crisp and punchy. Your input is just as important as the work ChatGPT can do for you; it can make sure it’s a smooth ride towards your ideal resume, but it cannot be the whole ride. When ChatGPT writes for you, and you don’t put in the tailoring work to improve it, it becomes noticeable.

You can always head to Quillbot, another generative AI, to find useful synonyms or paraphrase a sentence. There are several Large Language Models you can rely on if ChatGPT’s engine isn’t quite working out in your regional dialect, for example.

The better the prompt, the better the output

Prompts are the way ChatGPT interprets the world and what it bases its answers upon. Give out specific instructions with valuable information. It will be able to generate a response that is way more useful and accurate than if you only give the poor AI the bare minimum. Even if it tricks us into thinking that it’s very, very smart, ChatGPT is not a magic solution and cannot produce a splendid resume, such as the one we’re aiming to build, out of thin air. 

As an example, you could just say: “I am a nurse looking for a job in Austria; write a resume for me.” 

But if you, instead, give ChatGPT more information and precise instructions regarding how to create the resume you are asking for, the output it will produce will be much more accurate and relevant. The more detailed the prompt, the less tailoring you’ll have to do afterward.

Useful prompts to give ChatGPT for resume building

Note: Before moving forward, make sure you are comfortable with their privacy policy. If you want a more secure conversation, use OpenAI’s API instead.

The prompts you provide can vary depending on your specific needs. Such as, if you’re looking to change career paths, update your skills, or the language used on your CV so that it’s more specific to your field of work. Consider that if you already have a CV, you can copy-paste it and say “Using the resume below” and then add a follow-up prompt. 

ChatGPT will need to start with some information about your background and education so that it can build up on those points. Being precise and providing thorough information is key. Here are a few examples of input you can use to introduce yourself. Remember, these instructions were generated in collaboration with an AI, so add your input:

• My name is [Your name] I graduated from [University name] with a [Degree earned] in [Your major] in the year [Year of graduation]. I am looking for my first job in [Industry]. My hard skills include [Your hard skills]. My soft skills include [Your soft skills]. Based on this job description [Job description], what other information do you need from me in order to write a resume in relation to this position?
  
  
• My name is [Your name] I am a [Your profession] with [Years of Experience]. In my most recent role as [Your title] at [Company name] where I started working in [Date] I was responsible for [Your responsibilities]. Before that, I was [Your title] at [Company name] where I started working in [Date] and ended in [Date] and I was responsible for [Your responsibilities]. My hard skills include [Your hard skills]. My soft skills include [Your soft skills] I graduated from [University name] with a [Degree earned] in [Your major] in the year [Year of graduation]. Based on this job description [Job description], what other information do you need from me in order to write a resume in relation to this position?
  

Once you’ve given ChatGPT the information it needs to produce valuable responses, you can follow up with other prompts, such as:

• Based on the information and job description provided. Write a resume with [X] bullet points per role that include the most important keywords from the job description provided and showcase 10 relevant skills I should highlight. [Copy/paste the job description.]
  
  
• Based on the information and job description provided, create an engaging and compelling professional summary. Write five resume achievements with metrics based on the responsibilities outlined in the job description.
  
  
• Based on the information and job description provided, rephrase my experiences and achievements to showcase my relevant skills for this role. Include metrics. Organise the information in a way that is easy to read, and include keywords that are specific to the job description and industry.
  
  
• Correct all punctuation and grammar errors you find on this resume, and use adequate spelling [American English or British English, for example]

While ChatGPT can help you with the content, you will have to work on the formatting and layout of the information on your own. On a separate tab, open your template of choice — remember to check out the websites we listed above —   and you can start filling out the blanks.

So, can you use ChatGPT to write your resume?

The short answer is yes, absolutely. 

The long answer is yes, but you won’t be able to get out of putting in a little time and effort to prevent AI from sounding like what it is in 2023: a very authoritative machine parrot that can churn out sentences in a pace no human can, but that will make stuff up now and then. And when the A in the I starts becoming noticeable, it's time to step in.

Your role of bringing together your input with the output ChatGPT produces to create an excellent resume is mandatory. Do not go gentle into that good-looking output. Proofread, add your own input, and make sure to give out all the information it will need to provide you with better answers. 

So, are you ready to transform your resume and find jobs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland?