Since November 2022, AI chatbot ChatGPT has enabled anyone with internet access to generate anything in the written form: think intricate essays and code, succinct memos or poetry. Even with basic prompts, ChatGPT can complete complex, written tasks in moments, and work as a creative tool to quickly produce efficient content.
“I’ve had students use ChatGPT to write appeals for parking tickets,” says Vince Miller, reader in sociology and cultural studies at the University of Kent, UK. “But in general, the technology allows people who may not necessarily possess the best writing skills to suddenly have them.”
Jobseekers are among those reporting such benefits. Leveraging a dataset containing 570 billion individual words, OpenAI’s ChatGPT can compose convincing cover letters on demand, or synthesise a few career details into a competent, bullet-pointed CV. Want to send an email to a hiring manager? Prompt the chatbot, then copy and paste the AI-generated text straight into the message.
But hiring managers aren’t oblivious: they understand candidates are already leaning on generative AI to assist them, and may well do so even more as the technology grows in sophistication. This could create a shift in job applications as we know them, moving recruiters away from the traditional modes of evaluating candidates.