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How to use ChatGPT for your job application
Episode 0005 Transcript
0:04
Have you heard about ChatGPT and how it disrupts (blank)? Well, you are in for a treat. Now we're talking about how to use ChatGPT for your job application as a new PhD, or even as a postdoc without prior business experience.
So, for most of us, when we apply for the first time for a business job, then probably the business language for the industry, or language of applications is probably unknown for us.
That's why ChatGPT will be helpful. And for all of us who are international PhD students or graduates or scholars, this is something that will be really handy because ChatGPT writes in decent English. If you have the tendency to be less proficient in English, then especially if you're applying for international jobs, ChatGPT can be extremely helpful for you.
And I can already imagine that you are thinking, what is Eleonore talking about? Well, ChatGPT is the thing at the moment that most people, even white-collar workers, but especially companies are mostly excited and worried about.
Just a reminder, you will find the full transcript and all free career transition resources on this page.
What's ChatGPT?
It's an artificial intelligence that can create human like answers to your intelligent prompts. And it's a company called OpenAI that has published this as a free resource for everyone to test. They also offer a subscription, but everything I tell you now is done with their free account. And just as a disclaimer, there are also other ChatGPT-like artificial intelligence that can be used in a similar fashion.
So, the G in ChatGPT stands for generative. The P stands for pre-trained, and T stands for transformer and the Chat is just the chat so that means it's a machine learning artificial intelligence that can chat with the user (that will be you).
And the database is basically everything in the internet within a given timeframe (until 2021), and with all the biases that you have in the internet. But that cannot diminish the potential I see in the fact that it really boosts and creates human like answers, based on intelligent prompts.
I mean, asking the right questions is something that you will have to do. But then again, whatever the machine produces, is superior to the mediocre worker. In fact, it also helps me to write better & faster captions.
It's a huge boost that most people will be able to use to improve their work. That is in (blank). Okay, so that's, that's the versatility that ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence can use our employ in the future of work. And that's actually my prompt to recommend to you also the previous episode, which was entitled “The Future of Work for new PhD holders in business”.
5:04
Let's see specifically how ChatGPT can help you with your job applications. I've got five use cases for you and the bonus one at the end. And that's the, I think most amazing one.
1) ChatGPT advisors and give examples of good resumes, cover letters, standard interviews, salary negotiations, and also networking.
So, if you ask, you know how to write a good summary or how to write a good cover letter, or whatever it is, it will help you with the basic things.
And I think that even the basic things are helpful when you're still in your first job applications. Now, as you know, these are tips that you know, basically everyone will get asking these basic questions. So, you want it to be more specific, tailored to you.
2) ChatGPT can draft a view that is a selection of your skills relevant for a given job description, so that you can include them in your resume.
Now, this is mind boggling. For a given job description that will be maybe a good fit, you can include that in ChatGPT and then ask ChatGPT, “which of my skills (that you put into there based on your CV) are the most promising ones”.
So that you can then take these most promising skills and include them in your resume. And this is so essential for everyone, because most of the PhD students, graduates, postdocs, you know, all early career scientists think what are the most transferable skills that are monetizable for a given job?
And, you know, you have to have them in the first place. But if you have them, then maybe it's also hard for you to select the ones that you have. And that's why ChatGPT comes in so handy.
What it basically does is it weighs the job description against your given skill set. And then it finds out which are the matching ones the most promising ones. And then you can then include that in your resume and in your cover letter.
By using ChatGPT in a smart way, you will be able to exit your current situation in academia!
Remember, you are too smart to be bossed around!
3) ChatGPT can draft a summary of your achievements with metrics based on given job responsibilities.
And again, that's mind boggling, right? So, I always tell my graduate schools’, PhD students and also postdocs, who are benefiting from the career transition trainings I give them on site at their Graduate Schools and also in the e-courses, that they have to quantify and qualify their “whatever it is”.
Your achievements, your experiments, your experience, everything that you think that will help you get into the job (needs to be quantifies and contextualized).
A business recruiter cannot relate to that, that they need to have some metrics. When you are teaching; how many courses do you give per (semester) how many hours a week or just once in a semester? Is it how many people are in there that you teach and something like that?
Or whether you have got your own funding, then how much Euro / how much dollars were attached to it? What was the funding period? How competitive was it to get into the first round of whatever it is?
So, you won a poster prize? How many contestants were there? (They need) something that can help them contextualize your information because for a business recruiter, science and academia are worlds totally (unknown) or at least only known from a distance, and also relatively irrelevant.
And that's why you need to make it easy for them to see whether an achievement that you stated is an achievement that is beneficial for the company.
10:26
4) ChatGPT can draft a professional summary using your given CV and even rewrite that for an entry level or senior level position.
So, that's especially handy if you are applying to a company which you think that is a good fit for you, but you don't see job applications attractive for you. So, in that case, you could apply to these companies hoping that they will see a match within their database that you don't yet see or where they have a talent pipeline, a pipelining vacancy that they can already fill in with your profile, even if they haven't advertised that on every job board.
But also you can use that as a summary for your LinkedIn profile using your given CV. Okay, so that's a great thing. Especially, if you have a long list of your achievements in academia and want to summarize that from a business perspective in LinkedIn or on Twitter or whatever it is, I mean, probably not Twitter anymore, but you know for a press kit on your website.
Even if you are not inclined to leap, it could be still handy for grant applications. People who read and judge the grant applications aren't necessarily experts in your field. It's so important to have a professional summary of all your achievements, so that they can see at a glance whether you will be making an impact in their favor using their money.
5) ChatGPT can draft your cover letter based on a given job description and your CV.
And it's probably a pain in the butt for most of job applicants, that they are challenged to produce to write a targeted customized cover letter for a given company based on the role and the company and yourself. CV as such, the professional summary as such, the resume as such, these are things that are probably reusable in different job applications.
But the cover letter is usually tailored to the job application for company A, and even if it's just for different roles (in bigger companies), it needs to be read from different people, in the different units or business areas. It's also not the same HR representative. That's why it should be tailored.
And I know that there are companies nowadays that say a cover letter is not needed anymore, but using ChatGPT will help you to create one at almost no effort as compared to before ChatGPT could have helped you.
So, why not do this because it looks like the extra effort the extra mile that you are going to get this job out of science. And before we go to the last use case, I want you to reflect on where else can artificial intelligence helps you create a great job application?
I'm curious, do you learn innovative game changing things like this at your grad school? Do they offer career transition trainings for you? Do you need to leap into business asap? Then this PostdocTransformer bundle is for you!
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14:51
6) Bonus!
All right, can I have some drum rolls because number six will be amazing for you. Because when you're leaping out of science, you need to have some reference letters.
Imagine your principal investigator your supervisor, your processor, your postdoc, that you have to ask for recommending you for a business role.
Well, the challenge is; they have probably never entered the business, they might have always stayed in academia.
So that means they probably don't know the business language. They probably don't know the roles. They probably don't know the responsibilities, the skills that are needed for you to thrive in these kinds of roles.
And they probably cannot relate your achievements, your skills, your experience, to the job that you are applying for.
And that means, you have to draft that for your principal investigator or whoever gives you the reference center.
You cannot rely on their time and goodwill to bring you something that will help you because even if they have the goodwill, they have probably not the experience.
Here’s my personal experience. I have this university professor who is the chief editor of a well-known journal, and he wrote a reference letter for me. And it was four pages long and three of them were about his lab and only one of them was about my work.
And still that bit had absolutely no relevance for a job application in business.
So that's like no value at all for my situation of then leaping into business.
Alright, without further ado, here’s the best use case:
Chat GPT can draft your principal investigator’s reference letter for you based on a given job description and your CV.
Okay, that's a similar use case like number five but with a twist: You can ask ChatGPT to change the perspective and to take that perspective into account in writing the reference letter. And if you tweak that, based also on the experience of the professor or the principal investigator etc., then it will have a well-rounded recommendation for you in this reference letter.
So, I hope that all of these six use cases will help you to leap into business faster and better.
And to summarize all of these six use cases. One is ChatGPT advises and gives examples of resume cover letter etc. And that's the most basic help because it's standardized and not tailored to your information. Number two onwards are specifically tailored towards your own information because ChatGPT can draft a view a selection of your skills relevant for a given job. Number three ChatGPT can help you to draft a summary of your achievement with metrics based on a given job description. And number four, you can do a professional summary using your given CV that you can use somewhere else in social media. Number five, you can draft your cover letter. And number six, ChatGPT can help you to support your principal investigator to make a bigger impact with the reference letter for you.
And did you know that I offer deep dive courses, workshops and memberships at graduate school, maybe also at yours in the future, as your graduate school coordinator, whether they want to book my services so that I can deliver them to you 24/7 365 on your mobile device.
20:01
Please notice that for all use cases apart from the very basic one at the beginning, I stated “draft”.
ChatGPT can draft that does not mean that you can copy and paste that into your resume in your cover letter and send that off.
I tried that using my own CV and a job description I found interesting and I did this all and the results were 95% really great. And I think that it would have taken me a long time much longer than ChatGPT to produce such a good result. But then I can use my freed time now to make it 100% in the sense that I can use my own personality to make that you sound more like me.
21:13
If you are you are new to my weekly PostdocTransformation show that helps scientists to leap into business, I want you to check out also the first two or three episodes because these are more evergreen content. There you have to reflect on your internal and external circumstances and factors so that you know whether you are ready to leap out of science.
And episode number three specifically was about “10 steps to transition your career into business”. When you listen to episode number four “The future of work for new PhD holders in business”, you can then look for the best industries jobs, roles etc. that you can apply for.
And then once you made that decision, you will start your job applications. I hope, that this episode is then helpful for you.
And if it does help you, please rate this show, spread the love, share this in your WhatsApp or whatever with other early career scientists. Because this is the only way I can get to help more of you for free. I provide value. And you can thank me by sharing this with others.
In closing, I really hope that you invest into your doctorate according to your vision of life.
If you do, I'm very sure that you will be managing your PostdocTransformation.
Thank you for listening. Bye, bye until the next episode.
Eleonore & Team PostdocTransformation
P. S. What a mind-boggling episode, don't you think? Have you used AI in your academic work? Have you played around with it? Please let Eleonore know, if you found other use cases for AI in the context of job search and career transition! We would love to create a follow-up as AI rises! Prompt engineering is a hot skill, by the way!!!
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