A postdoc asks—

I'm getting ready to job search and realizing how much time preparing a separate cover letter for every position will take. I liked your advice on using AI in exploring careers, do you have any advice on how I could use ChatGPT to help with my applications?

This is a tricky question to answer, because there's no standard benchmark for how long it might take someone to draft a cover letter. People have different processes and AI might fit in differently for different people. AI can very quickly generate a cover letter, and if time is a pressing concern and all you need is a file to attach, it could be useful! However, whether that cover letter is a suitable representation of you is a different question entirely. For some people, that output might serve as a useful first draft to get your own creative juices flowing. But remember, generative AI is based around an aggregate of the most common language and it doesn't know anything you haven't already told it. If you're writing up your motivations and unique experiences (other than what's in your resume) to feed to ChatGPT, then maybe that's your cover letter already? ;)

There's plenty of other applications we're curious about. Another approach could be taking an existing cover letter that you like, and using AI to quickly tweak it for new job postings. The truth is that use cases will be highly specific to each person, and may require some exploration.

This is a new space, and we're actively planning to learn more about how these tools may or may not be useful! We're putting together an experiment to test some of these questions—if you're interested in participating, reach out to [email protected].

-Matt Arvedson, Career and Professional Development Leadership Senior Intern