Today's hiring process is broken. It's also heavily guarded by automated screening tools that can bury your application before a human ever sees it. That means a generic, "one-size-fits-all" resume is a quick way to ensure your name never makes it past the digital gatekeepers.
While a cover letter is where you can showcase your personality, your resume functions as a technical pitch deck; if it hasn't been tailored to reflect the exact role you're after, you're essentially invisible to recruiters.
That means investing time to create an epic resume could really pay off. It's the first touchpoint you get with a prospective employer. But if staring at a blank page and trying to write about yourself feels overwhelming, then let artificial intelligence do some of the legwork for you.
If you're struggling to condense decades of your career highlights into two pages, read on.
(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
Best AI tools for building a resume
ChatGPT, the breakout generative AI tool, can help you with the best practices of resume writing and speed up the process. If there's one thing AI is good at, it's synthesizing, structuring and summarizing information. And once you have your resume, you can use it to create a custom cover letter.
You can use a free version of ChatGPT or pay $20 per month for added features like the most recent models, priority access during peak usage and image generation.
While I'll be using ChatGPT for this experiment, you can use any AI chatbot, including Anthropic's Claude, Perplexity, Google's Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and newcomer DeepSeek. All of these chatbots are free or have a free version.
Read more: Job Hunting With AI: 7 Techniques We Tried and How to Use Them
Building a resume with ChatGPT
Set yourself up for success by doing some preparation. ChatGPT needs context; otherwise, it'll spit out generic content that's sometimes even wrong. I started by researching reporter resume templates and jotted down notes about past experience, education and accomplishments.
Then to find out what ChatGPT needs, just ask. "Can you write me a resume?" was my first prompt, and ChatGPT conveniently told me all the information to input so it could get to work.
I replied with all my information, outlined like this, and attached my preferred format:
Here is my professional summary: [paste]
Here is my work experience: [paste]
Here are my major clients: [paste]
Here is my education: [paste]
Please generate a list of skills based on my experience and format my resume like the example below: [paste template]
ChatGPT does a great job of organizing information into a cohesive format, but I wanted to change it so it flowed a little better (it put my education before my experience, making it look at first glance like I didn't have any experience).
Please reorganize the following sections in this order:
- Contact Details
- Summary
- Experience
- Major Clients
- Skills
- Education
Looking good.
Keeping your sensitive info private
You'll see I didn't give the chatbot my contact details to add to the resume. I prefer to keep my sensitive information out of the model to avoid any future data breaches or unnecessary risk, so I'll add my email, phone number and address myself in the final version.
When reviewing ChatGPT's draft, I noticed two issues:
- My 10 years as a full-time freelancer needed to be fleshed out by adding noteworthy projects and lengthy contracts.
- The skills list was way too long.
Back in ChatGPT, I wrote the following:
Please add two contract roles under Freelance Reporter and Writer in the experience section.
Freelance Reporter at NerdWallet, August 2022 - present. Tasks: Writing personal finance advice articles, providing insights and strategies to educate and empower everyday consumers in Australia. Topics include credit cards, travel points, frequent flyer programs, BNPL, credit scores, money management, and more.
Freelance Reporter at Decential, September 2022 - present. Tasks: Reporting on the people, projects and protocols in the world of web3. Cover news, interview founders, write deep dive features and commentary, and cover in-person events and conferences.
Then, instead of reducing the skills list, I asked that it be arranged in two columns. The chatbot put the info into a table, which I didn't like, so I asked that it be removed.
ChatGPT still had a hard time with it. I asked it again to present the info in two columns, with a space in between but without a table or borders. You can highlight a section and reply specifically there.
But it still didn't work, so I stopped wasting time and did it myself directly in the document.
Tweaking an AI resume
Before I made my final tweaks, I asked ChatGPT to provide a short list of suggestions for how to improve my resume. It gave me some solid advice -- like highlighting achievements, quantifying results, tailoring my resume to a specific job, adding keywords and making my professional summary more concise -- but take it all with a grain of salt.
For example, my professional summary shows my narrative abilities and doesn't take up much real estate. I did, however, add a section for notable projects.
Though some advice was relevant, like adding metrics to achievements and starting each bullet point with a strong action verb, the others weren't necessary. For instance, I didn't want to make my profile more concise, because that's where I show off my narrative ability for writing jobs. When using artificial intelligence, always trust your human instinct.
Last, I wanted to reduce it from four pages to three, so I arranged my major clients into two columns and reduced the skills list. You could also ask it to make your resume one page to make it easier for recruiters and HR professionals to read.
Once ChatGPT is done with the nitty-gritty, you can add the finishing touches yourself. I'll drop in my logo and byline hyperlinks, then it's good to go!
Can employers detect AI resumes?
There are ways to detect AI-written text, which is why we do not advise outsourcing your entire resume to an AI chatbot to write. What we do advise is using it as a thought partner throughout the process, and feeding it information like what kinds of jobs you're looking for and how to incorporate the appropriate keywords and information that employers may be looking for into yours.
You must remember to check that AI didn't make up any skills or experience for you -- so you don't accidentally lie on a job application.
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