How to efficiently use ChatGPT to boost your career

The secret is to combine your experience and knowledge with a good use of this artificial intelligence text generator that is here to stay.

Let's face it. We have all asked for help from a friend who is an expert in human resources to write our cover letter or resume. A classic analog process for applying for a job vacancy. Now the formula is the same, only the friend is artificial intelligence. Faster and more effective.

"At the beginning of December, a friend I can't mention told me that a startup related to artificial intelligence had contacted him to start a selection process. Jokingly, I suggested that he use a new AI called ChatGPT to generate all the necessary material," so began Rafael Pavón, creative director of new technologies at Nexus Studios US, a personal experiment with which he intends to demonstrate the great potential of this tool today and in the future. "For now ChatGPT can't be used in real time but it won't be long before it can." And although this text generator is still only a BETA version, this candidate has made it to the third and final stage of the process thanks to his skill.

By now you may be wondering how this is possible, especially if you've already played around with ChatGPT. Most of us novice users who have done so only got to play with the novelty, receiving responses that were perhaps surprising but not as human or useful as promised. And the problem is not the tool itself but how we humans get the most out of it.

"At first we started by writing the introduction to her resume and cover letter. He was writing correct texts but without that extra that personality gives you. Then we started trying different prompts that worked really well: 'I like the text but write it as if you were Obama' or 'Imagine if Steve Jobs wrote a cover letter'."

"The results were surprising. A few sentences had to be edited slightly but it was amazing to come up with something so good and so easy." So with this trick to humanize the tool's texts, the candidate moved on to the next test: a presentation about his strategy at the company if he succeeds in filling the vacancy. "ChatGPT gave us a very reasonable strategy, had broken down the whole process and even estimated a budget. With a few minor changes the presentation was a success and moved on to the next phase, where it is now," Pavón continues.

In the last interview, this time face to face, Pavón's friend plans to confess the strategy he has used during the whole process. And it is very likely that, in this case, instead of as a hoax, recruiters will take it as a stroke of genius:

"The company uses artificial intelligence to create video game characters indistinguishable from humans, so using another artificial intelligence to create a process indistinguishable from a human seemed appropriate."

Is ChatGPT efficient enough to make us smarter? Robert Maxwell, director of the Cybersecurity degree at the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria confirms: "The machine is impressive. I use it for financial crime investigation issues, for reporting or searching for information and the reality is that it is the future. When you ask questions, what it basically does is to enter Google and all the search engines, search for information, read it and construct an answer. Its level is impressive. It works very well because what it answers you is original content with its sources but it's not a copy and paste of an article. And it's also well written".

At this point in science fiction, it is inevitable to think about the B-side of artificial intelligence, about the fear we have of robots taking our jobs. Maxwell, however, is optimistic and believes that there are jobs that will inevitably disappear - "for example, those that write for SEO search engines, that will be done by the machine in no time at all" - but, on the other hand, new ones will be created.

"The fact-checking profile will be necessary, because we have to know if what the machine says is true or not because it may have taken a reference article that was incorrect in what it said, and you have to have the level of knowledge to know if it is doing it right or wrong. If you don't understand what you're reading, you can get into trouble." Here is the key to the expertise of Pavón and his friend: if they were not experts in the sector for which one of them is applying for the job, no matter how much ChatGPT helps him, he would not have made it this far.

Maxwell, as a teacher, is used to uncovering copy-and-paste scams, in which the information is not corroborated and interpreted:

"I don't use it in class until the last year, but since the kids know Latin, if I see that what they write is too complex for their level of knowledge, I've already caught them. If there is a girl or a boy who starts writing with a technical level that you can't believe, they have obviously done some kind of scam. ChatGPT is an assistant that helps, but it's not for copying".

Pavón insists that "it is always necessary to revise the result, to qualify some words, to structure it in a different way. ChatGPT is not able to understand the purpose of the text and its audience, so the human has to be able to squeeze it until he finds exactly what he needs. Without this editing process, ChatGPT is an anecdote. With that process, it becomes the tool that will change everything."

I can't end this article without interviewing the protagonist of the news. What does ChatGPT think of the accusations of labor intrusiveness?

"I can use language fluently and coherently, and I can produce text that is easy for people to understand. However, I do not have the ability to perform work that requires creativity, judgment, or human decision making. I do not have the ability to replace people in their work. My role is to help get answers to questions and provide information on a wide variety of topics."

I am struck by the humility and honesty with which he answers - perhaps those qualities have also earned him points with recruiters - and especially by the realization that we fear the machine when in fact it is our ally. Even if we don't even know where to begin to relate to it. "With such a new tool it always pays to be a user from the beginning. To learn what works and what doesn't, what its limitations are and how it can help us. I tell my final year students, about to leave university, that they need to know how to use these kinds of tools because when you're in consulting you're going to have to work quickly and with certainty," advises Maxwell.

"Two or three years from now we will surely have a professional version that will learn from me, understand my approach and do with few keywords what I want."

And you, ChatGPT, how do you see yourself in the future?

"I am not able to predict with certainty what professional profiles will emerge in the future or how technology will be used to create them. It is important to keep in mind that as technology advances, there may also be changes in the way existing jobs are performed and new job opportunities may emerge. It is important to be informed about current and future trends in the world of work and be willing to adapt to them."

Maybe this artificial intelligence text generator isn't quite perfected yet but it has already given us the best advice for our working future: use it. 

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