Chat GPT: How to ask useful careers questions

Following my recent foray into Chat GPT where I explored how to define your superpowers, in this post I experiment with other prompts that may be helpful to use either yourself, or with job seekers if you’re a careers professional.

US-based Professor Heather Austin has produce a handy FREE list of useful Chat GPT prompts for job seekers. I decided to try out three of them.

1. Can you suggest some (UK) resources, such as books, podcasts, or online courses, to help me explore potential careers?

While I would have added some different suggestions from my own knowledge, the response did include a number of credible resources. For example, suggestions included ‘The Squiggly Career’ by Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis. Chat GPT’s response was sufficiently nuanced to differentiate from the list of US resources I initially requested. However I realised by focusing solely on the UK market that I then excluded ‘What Color is your Parachute’ by Richard N. Bolles, which I consider to be a careers classic.

2. What are some popular career assessment tools that can help me discover my interests and passions?

This produced a US-based list, some of which would also be useful in the UK. I then decided to make a more precise request: ‘What are some of the popular Strengths assessment tools that can help me discover my interests and passions?‘ Chat GPT’s response included those I was aware of: Clifton Strengths, VIA Character Strengths and Strengths- along with one I didn’t, called Stand Out Assessment by Marcus Buckingham. I liked this one a lot and will make this the subject of a future post.

3. Can you rewrite my bullet points to include more results-driven achievements with a focus on my experience in…training?

This question yielded some really helpful improvements. I used examples from one version of my CV. A couple of ‘before’ and ‘after examples:

• Designed and delivered staff training on Strengths for staff teams at Warwick and externally.

Became:

• Designed and delivered impactful staff training on Strengths, both internally for staff teams at Warwick and externally to various organisations.

And:

• Presented at national conferences on Strengths.

Changed to

• Presented at prestigious national conferences on Strengths, sharing expertise and contributing to thought leadership in the field.

Finally from:

• Established ‘Inspiring Women’ a series of inspirational female senior speakers for staff at Warwick with support from colleagues in HR, Alumni Relations, LDC and Corporate Relations securing £4,000 investment from the University.

To:

• Pioneered the establishment of ‘Inspiring Women,’ a series of inspiring talks by female senior leaders, in collaboration with colleagues from HR, Alumni Relations, LDC, and Corporate Relations, securing a £4,000 investment from the University.

Chat GPT’s suggestions were definitely an improvement on my version- and took seconds to generate. I anticipate many of you rushing off to have a go with this one!

Early lessons from my experimentation:

1. The more precise your enquiry, the more meaningful the result.
2. In your professional sphere- whatever that is- you will undoubtedly know of more/better resources that are available. An individual who does not have that same degree of knowledge will not know what they don’t know.
3. You may stumble across resources that you weren’t previously aware of.
4. Check for accuracy. The spelling on my CV was American English so a couple of words needed correcting.
5. For clients wanting to improve their CV, Chat GPT could save significant time. Conversations with careers staff will become more nuanced and CV quality should increase significantly.
6. Conversely, when more CVs are of a higher quality, recruiters will need to consider different/better ways to differentiate between applicants.
7. When you start to experiment with AI, you can spend hours disappearing down rabbit holes when something piques your interest- so be prepared to put time aside when you play in the Chat GPT sandpit.