Looking for a Job? Getting AI to Polish Your Resume Is Never Going To Get You Hired. Here's Why.
"I'm a motivated individual looking for a challenging workplace where I can contribute my creativity to a diverse and highly engaged team."
I wrote that in 10 seconds. ChatGPT can write something similar for you, but will it get your foot in the door? No.
Recently, I watched numerous videos on TikTok where job seekers share how hard they've tried to apply for jobs by getting ChatGPT to polish their resumes. I'm curious to know who's working harder--them or ChatGPT?
Let's face it. We all use ChatGPT to polish our content and apps like Grammarly to check our spelling and grammar. That said, these tools are meant to enhance your work, not to do all your work.
What IS going to get you the job is PROOF of the prospective value you will add to the company. Are you motivated, diligent, and a team player? Great. Show me.
What do I mean by proof? Here are a few examples:
As a recruiter, you increase the employee retention rate from 50% to over 80% in one year.
As a Media Planner, you decrease the CPM for a brand launch campaign from $12 to $4.
As a Marketing Strategist, you devise a media plan that drives 200% more foot traffic to your client's store during the campaign period.
As a Marketing Consultant, you use a channel-specific promotional code that shows your gift with purchase tactic drove 300 new account signups in one day compared to the usual five account signups per day.
As a Content Creator who wants to sell courses teaching others how to build their account, you have a proven track record of going viral with new content each month and growing your account from 0 to 200K.
As an aspiring star athlete, you're placed first in 5 out of 10 races in the past year.
Proof. That's what I'm talking about. Do you have it? If you don't, it might be because you have yet to step up or raise your hand for a role in which you are accountable for the results. Or, you have the results from past roles, but they are nothing to sing and dance about. Therein lies the issue: you still need to challenge yourself to a point where your proof is enough to get you the job. Do you think a company hiring for a sales rep will decline a superstar who brings in millions? Or would a SaaS company deny an interview opportunity to a developer who's shown they can build, debug, and deploy a useful app with hundreds of thousands of downloads?
Instead of spending time discussing why you haven't gotten the interview or multiple job offers, identify your differentiators. Maybe you discover that you don’t have any. What do you do then? Well, start building some! Do you have a stack of irrefutable evidence showing your awesomeness? If you do, then you shouldn't have anything to worry about. If you don't, it's time for a reality check and start generating hard results to push your career forward.
