Career Coach Mandy detailed on Tiktok how a candidate sent her a cover letter generated through ChatGPT based on the job description. The cover letter was a little too good, so she got suspicious, and she found the candidate had used the AI tool to write it.

Using AI to write a résumé or cover letter is no worse than hiring someone, and it's free.

Amber Burton and Paolo Confino at Fortune opine, "HR might not be able to detect a résumé written by ChatGPT. That could be a problem."

It could be, and it was a problem for Career Coach Mandy precisely because she was hiring a résumé writer. She already has ChatGPT available to her and doesn't need someone who can use that skill set. But it's probably not a problem for the rest of you.

Résumés and cover letters are written by people other than the candidate all the time. Heck, I make money helping people craft these things. While my bank account tells me I should have people stay away from ChatGPT, my desire to truly help people tells me to send them right over.

If a candidate presents a résumé or cover letter that truly doesn't represent what they did, it doesn't matter who wrote it--themselves, a paid writer, their mother, or a bot. If it does represent what they did--and the job isn't for a résumé writer--it doesn't matter who wrote it.

Résumés and cover letters are marketing documents. You hire people to do your documents all the time. This should be no different.

ChatGPT is a starting point.

I fed ChatGPT a job description for a full stack developer and asked it to write a fake résumé based on that description. This is what it returned:

It continued to add education and such. It's clearly not ready for submission. First, you need to eliminate the objective: it's not 1997 anymore.

Second, it just lists software and tasks with no details that make them seem real. And because it includes absolutely everything in the job description, it immediately seems suspect.

But what this does do is help someone figure out what to put in a résumé. You can use it as an outline to give you ideas. It's a starting point, not a perfected document.

In a job interview, the hiring manager would ask for details and successes. The hiring manager would rapidly figure out the person was lying about their knowledge, skills, and abilities in an interview.

Use AI tools to help you hire.

You don't have to let the job-seekers have all the fun. If you're writing a job description from scratch, give AI a try to get an outline. Then adjust it to what you need. Use it to streamline your own processes so you can focus on things that add value.

A caution.

We know ChatGPT is biased. This is not a surprise. AI isn't actually intelligent or somehow above human flaws. It simply magnifies the flaws in the input. So be careful. Double-check that the information it gives you is accurate.

Remember, it's a tool. It's not a polished product. But don't be scared of candidates or hiring managers who use it to make job-hunting a little bit easier. We all should use whatever tools are at our disposal, and this one (right now) is free.

Read the full report here