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Competition in the job market is steep. Some estimates suggest that it can take between 100 to 200 applications to land a job. Knowing the best ChatGPT prompts for resume writing can help you enhance your applications and reduce the amount of admin needed to find your perfect role.
After all, tailoring your resume (otherwise known as curriculum vitae – CV) and cover letter to dozens or even hundreds of applications is an extremely time-consuming and thankless process.
Using a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT can help you streamline this process by combining natural language processing (NLP), natural language generation, and text summarization to enable you to structure your resume.
Below we’re going to look at the best ChatGPT prompts for resume writing. While writing in your own voice is always best, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and LLMs can be useful for unlocking insights into how you can improve your resume as a whole.
- Show Full Guide
The Best ChatGPT Prompts for Resume Writing
1. Write Me a Resume
If you’re starting your job search from scratch, then writing a new resume can be a great way to redefine your professional experience. To begin, simply enter “write me a resume,” and ChatGPT will provide you with a basic template format for the document.
In our test of this prompt, ChatGPT recommended a basic structure, which included Contact Information, Objective or Summary, Education, Work Experience, Skills, Certifications or Wards, Volunteer Work, and References with sub-bullets detailing the information to be included at each stage.
If you want a resume tailored to your experience, you have two options; fill this template out with your personal information or enter the same prompt again but provide additional context on your educational background, past experience, and skills that you want highlighted.
2. Write Me a Cover Letter
While you’re unlikely to catch a hiring manager’s attention with a 100% AI-generated cover letter, using ChatGPT to develop some basic structure can make it much easier to put your own ideas forward.
To start, enter the prompt “write me a cover letter for a [POSITION NAME] at [ENTER company name]”. In our test, the virtual assistant responded with a basic cover letter.
Given that the output was quite generic, we recommend using follow-up instructions and providing the chatbot with more context on your experience. For example, “can you rewrite this cover letter and highlight my experience as an [POSITION NAME] at [Microsoft] where I [STATE ACHIEVEMENT).”
Once you’ve made some improvements to your resume, you can then edit the end result with your tone of voice to make it sound more natural.
3. Tell Me How I Could Improve My Resume
When you already have a basic resume drafted, ChatGPT can play more of a backseat role, guiding you on basic changes you could make to improve your resume.
As part of our exercise, entering “tell me how I could improve my resume,” prompted ChatGPT to generate recommendations on alternative phrases that could be used to readability or highlight technical skills and experience more effectively.
Though this isn’t a substitute for having a colleague or professional resume writer double-check your resume, it does provide you with a tool you can use to check for basic tweaks you can use to make your career achievements stand out.
4. Spell-check My Cover Letter
On a similar note, ChatGPT can also be used as a spellcheck tool to pinpoint grammatical errors. Simply enter a prompt such as “spell check my cover letter,” alongside a copy and pasted excerpt from your cover letter (or resume), and the chatbot will proceed to act as a basic spell checker and proofreader.
In our test of this prompt, the solution generated a bulleted list of improvements that could be made to the shared text. This included guidance on fixing sentence fragments, comma placement, and other recommendations to improve overall clarity.
Once again, while this is no substitute for a professional resume writer or proofreader, it can help to add a “second pair of eyes,” to check for basic errors that you might have missed.
5. Suggest Relevant Keywords to Optimize My Resume for X Position
It’s no secret that employers use applicant tracking systems (ATS) to scan for keywords in resumes before they commit to reading them. This means it’s vital to make sure that you optimize your CV for the right key terms if you want to get your application seen.
One way to do this is to ask ChatGPT. For example, entering “suggest relevant keywords to optimize my resume for a software development position,” returned a list of relevant terms that could be added.
More specifically, the prompt generated keyword recommendations on programming languages to mention (Python, Java, C++, JavaScript and Ruby), frameworks and libraries (React Angular, Node.js, Django, Flask and .NET), database technologies (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Oracle, SQL Server), and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform).
It also highlighted other industry terms like Agile, Scrum, Waterfall, and Lean, which we could also use.
6. Tell Me How I Could Adapt My Resume to Fulfill This Job Description
Reading a job description and developing a tailored resume and cover letter can be extremely difficult, particularly if you’re applying to multiple positions at once. For this reason, ChatGPT can be used to suggest ways that you could adapt your resume to meet the requirements of a job description.
For instance, entering a prompt such as “tell me how I could adapt my resume to fulfilling this job description” and pasting an excerpt of a resume and the job description will provide you with some basic recommendations you can use to adapt your application to meet the needs of the job description.
7. Write a Summary of My Career Achievements
Knowing how to tell the story of your career is essential to selling yourself as a candidate. However, if you’re struggling to summarize your own experience in a way that sounds natural, ChatGPT may be a useful resource.
In a test, we asked ChatGPT to “write a summary of my career achievements” and copied and pasted a sample resume and cover letter, which prompted the chatbot to write an impressive and succinct summary.
Though you always want to make sure you preserve your own voice when you’re describing your career, ChatGPT is definitely a useful tool for helping to reexamine your own experience from another perspective.
8. List Key Skills I Should Highlight in My Application for X Role
Recruiters and hiring managers are increasingly skills-focused, so you need to be able to highlight what relevant skills you bring to the table if you want to stand out from other candidates.
If you’re looking to make your resume or cover letter more skills-rich, enter a prompt such as “list key skills I should highlight in my application for [INSERT ROLE] at [INSERT COMPANY NAME].”
This should return a list of skills, abilities, and phrases you should mention in your application. Using ChatgPT in this manner is a good way to help surface potential words or phrases that an employer might be looking to see in your resume.
9. Make My Resume Shorter
One of the most difficult parts of writing a resume or cover letter is making sure it’s the right length. Many candidates struggle to strike a balance between providing too much detail and too little.
At the same time, it can be difficult to take a step back from what you’ve written to see what content could be shortened or removed.
In this sense, you can ask ChatGPT to “make my resume shorter” to help cut down your resume and enhance its readability. Sometimes simply putting out the same information in a shortened package can come across as much more engaging and increase your chances of landing your dream job.
10. Give Me a List of 10 Headlines I Can Use for My Resume
Generally, hiring managers will look at a resume for just six to seven seconds before making a decision. This means that candidates have a very narrow window to make a good impression.
Using a headline at the top of your resume can be a great way to get across your overall skills and experience from the get-go. While it can be difficult to write a good headline from scratch, ChatGPT can help to speed up the process.
Simply enter your resume and cover letter into ChatGPT and then enter a prompt such as “give me a list of 10 headlines I can use for my resume.” This should return a list of headlines. If you find one you like, use it, or ask ChatGPT to generate more headlines until you do!
The Bottom Line
Writing resumes and CVs can be a thankless grind, but by incorporating tools like ChatGPT, you can make the process much more manageable while getting better at marketing yourself as a professional.
The key to getting good results isn’t just entering the right prompt but making sure you communicate your own experiences as an individual too.
FAQs
Can ChatGPT write my resume?
Can ChatGPT write my cover letter?
How do I use ChatGPT to write a resume or cover letter?
How do I write the best prompts for resume writing?
References
- How Many Applications Does it Take to Get a Job? (Hire Lehigh)
- How Long Do Hiring Managers Look at a Resume? (Indeed)
