(Getty Images/Zooey Liao)
Job hunting sucks. You can spend hours searching for positions to apply to, filling out forms, and writing cover letters to never even get a rejection email, let alone constructive criticism. So, in a world where employers are increasingly relying on AI, why shouldn't you use it to make this process less painful or even give you an edge over the competition? AI can be a valuable tool in your job search, but it's essential to use it effectively. Otherwise, you risk your applications never getting a second look. To maximize your chances of finding the perfect gig with AI, follow our three tips below and take note of some practices to actively avoid.
1. Boost Those Keywords and Tailor Your Resume
Aside from checking your resume for grammar and spelling issues, AI chatbots can check for passive voice, phrasing, and word choice. These might seem like minor tweaks, but using the best language possible to demonstrate your experience can make a meaningful difference. Furthermore, it’s not always easy to do that by yourself after staring at the same page for hours.
Many companies use software to keep track of applicants. Often, these programs look for certain keywords to trim a pool of candidates down from hundreds or even thousands to a number a hiring manager can reasonably interview. AI chatbots can pick out potential keywords from a job description or a list of the top keywords in your industry, as well as give you suggestions on how to incorporate them naturally into your resume without resorting to keyword stuffing.
You should take advantage of deep research capabilities, too. ChatGPT and Gemini, for example, can generate reports spanning dozens of pages and incorporating upward of 50 sources on any topic for free. As such, you can task a chatbot with digging into what’s going on in your industry and coming up with ways to optimize your resume. For example, if there is a high demand for coders with experience in a language you know, you can emphasize that in your resume.
Lastly, tailoring a resume to the job you’re applying for, especially if it’s a dream job, can be worthwhile. But it’s also a major pain. A chatbot can help you with this. You can feed it a job description and your resume, and then ask it to suggest changes relevant to said position. This cuts down on the work you have to do and still lets you target specific gigs.
Before you dive in and start prompting, though, it’s important to keep in mind that AI chatbots collect and use your data (including all of your chat history) for training purposes. You can opt out of the training with most chatbots, but not the data collection. So be careful about the personal information you share.
2. Up Your Cover Letter Game
Your cover letter typically needs to be different for every job you apply to, and an AI chatbot can help. Much of the same advice for leveraging AI to improve your resume applies to cover letters. That means you can use a chatbot for checking grammar and spelling, as well as cleaning up awkward phrasing, fixing passive voice, and optimizing word choice.
You can also use an AI chatbot to generate a first draft of a cover letter. This works best if you start by sharing the job description and your resume. After that, consider the following prompt: “Please review the provided information and write a sharp, professional cover letter that explains why I'm a great fit for this position, highlights my experience, and underscores what sets me apart from other applicants." Furthermore, you can ask the chatbot to focus on specific skills or competencies, dictate the tone (such as academic, professional, or formal), and specify a length (such as 300 words, four paragraphs, or one page).
Once you have the results, you can use them as the outline for the final draft you write yourself. Oftentimes, the hardest part of writing a cover letter is thinking up a good structure that tackles everything you need to without going on for too long or leaving out important details. With an example of a cover letter in front of you, it’s easy to write a version in your style.
3. Use a Chatbot Before the Interview
Landing an interview is simultaneously the most thrilling and nerve-wracking part of the job-hunting process, and you can absolutely call in an AI chatbot for assistance before an interview. Chatbots can make great interview prep assistants.
The first and most obvious thing they can do is help you anticipate interview questions. Try a prompt like “I have been invited for an interview at [insert or describe the company here] for [insert or describe the position here]. What questions should I expect to be asked?”
You can also ask the chatbot to role-play the interview with you. Try prompting your AI of choice with "Imagine you're the hiring manager at [company], and you're interviewing me for a [job title] role. Please review my resume and cover letter, and ask me questions that will help you determine if I'm a good fit for the position." Some chatbots offer lifelike voice modes, too, which can make any role-play feel a lot more organic.
Lastly, another great way to prepare for an interview is to have the chatbot generate questions for you to ask the hiring manager. Just make sure to carefully craft your prompt and include any pertinent details.
For some out-loud practice, you can use Google Interview Warmup. It's a free, AI-powered interview practice tool that asks interview questions and then assesses your responses for job-related terms, talking points, and the words you used most. It works best for jobs in cybersecurity, data analytics, digital marketing, e-commerce, IT support, project management, and UX design, but it can also ask basic questions and give some general feedback that's relevant to any job.
Avoid These AI Uses at All Costs
Although it might be tempting to use an entirely AI-generated resume, doing so has risks. If a hiring manager realizes it’s AI-generated, for example, they'll likely think that you are too lazy to make one yourself. And if other applicants submit AI-generated resumes, yours might not stand out. At worst, submitting such a resume could take you out of the running for a job and even damage your professional reputation. So it's generally best to have AI chatbots serve as an extra set of eyes on a resume you create.
The advice for cover letters is the same: Don’t use chatbots to write your cover letter for you. As mentioned above, you can use them to generate a rough draft and then rewrite it yourself, but a fully AI-generated one will make you seem like a terrible candidate. Hiring managers and recruiters can spot an AI-generated cover letter from a mile away, since they are often generic and tend to have similar traits.
Lastly, don’t use an AI chatbot during an interview. It can sound like a great idea to keep ChatGPT open to ask it any questions on the fly, but passing off AI-generated responses as your own might do more harm than good. An AI chatbot inevitably lacks context, so its responses reflect that. And it’s incredibly easy to say something incorrect when you are quickly regurgitating chatbot responses without much thought.
Chandra Steele and David Paiz-Torres contributed to this story.
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.