Get AI on your side

There are plenty of free-to-use AI apps for PCs and mobile devices. They can be used for a variety of tasks during your job search. The apps I have used include Perplexity (great for research), ChatGPT (to help with analysis and writing). Another one is Claude and I it how it could help me with my career coaching clients. Here's the reply: "Here are key strategies for using me effectively with career coaching clients:

1. Assessment & Goal Setting

- Draft comprehensive career vision statements

2. Resume and Professional Materials

- Draft, review, and refine resumes tailored to specific industries

3. Interview Preparation

- Create industry-specific interview question banks

4. Job Search Strategy

- Analyze job descriptions and align client profiles

- 5. Skill Development Planning

- Recommend learning resources and up-skilling strategies

Each of these areas can leverage my ability to generate structured, personalized content quickly and provide objective, professional guidance."

Of course, as a career coach, my clients benefit from one-on-one work and I see AI as a way for me to provide clients with more material to discuss and it enables us to spend more time on the analysis and thought that AI needs to process the material. It's a win-win enhancing the coaching process.

Here's a few ideas for you to try with AI. Copy and paste your resume or a job posting into it after asking for help with a questions. For example, "Please extract key skills, experience, education from my resume and create a summary statement and a list of professional strengths. [Past resume]" Other tasks could be:

- Compare resume skills to job requirements

- Assess percentage of direct skill alignment

- Highlight transferable skills

I recommend that my clients feed AI with a position description and ask it to list the key skills required which is easier to review and compare to a resume.

Leave a comment about how you are using AI in your career development.