Last Spring, I went to the gorgeous, glorious wedding of a friend who works in AI. The bride was radiant, the groom beaming, and the vicar performed a heart-warming service. In many ways, it was a very traditional occasion. But when we came to the wedding breakfast, the Best Man's speech had a very modern twist. It had been written by ChatGPT.
AI, it seems, has taken the world by storm in the last couple of years. You can barely open a news website without running headlong into a discussion about how it'll change our lives. But what does it mean for your job search? Well, we've heard on the grapevine that increasing numbers of candidates are now using AI to help them write covering letters and answer questions in job application forms. So what, I hear you ask? Does it really matter? Who cares if I've received a little extra help along the way?
The answer, possibly, is your future employer. Probably not in a deliberate, thought-out way, you understand. I mean, there are tools out there that can help to detect documents that've been generated by AI, but sometimes even the companies that make them admit that they're not hugely effective. Allegedly, they're not great at differentiating AI-written text from that put together by humans. (Shakespeare, apparently, came off badly from this exercise, and was placed firmly in the AI-generated group...). Given the questionable track record of this software, we think it's relatively unlikely that many employers would invest the time and effort in running all the applications they receive through an AI-checking tool.
But it's not quite as simple as that. Your covering letter, you see, is your chance to really connect with the reader. To demonstrate why they should choose you, out of the tens or hundreds of applications on their desk. To show who you really are. If you're moving industries, a covering letter can discuss how your transferable skills are relevant. If you've taken a career break, this can be a great opportunity to talk about everything you learned in that time, and any experience you might have gained from volunteering roles. This is the perfect moment to showcase the fact that you're interesting and engaged, and hungry for this role.
Can AI do this for you? In all honesty, we wouldn't want to put money on it. It can absolutely provide a good basic framework, to get you started, Often, it's easier to craft something impressive when you have some text to start you off, rather than a blank page. It can help with written expression, and with spelling and punctuation, if that isn't your strong point. But we think it's a risky strategy to rely solely on a computer for this most important of tasks - you'll probably need to "write yourself into" anything it provides to you, if you want to chase down that dream role. AI, contrary to popular belief, can't "think" on its own. It simply scours the internet for patterns in text, and supplies the most likely next word in a sentence. It's actually just a string of randomly-generated words. This isn't a criticism - in fact, it's often amazingly effective. It can produce text which sounds really authentic, and appropriate for a given circumstance. Sometimes disconcertingly so. But - crucially - it doesn't have the capacity to think about it. It can't check whether the things it's written are actually true, for a start - and as we all know, making claims to experience and skills that you don't actually possess can land you in very hot water further down the line. It won't be able to provide concrete examples of the projects you've worked on, or the things you've achieved, or the lessons you've learned throughout your professional life. And really, that does matter - after all, these are things that mark us out to prospective employers. On its own, there's a risk that it might sound generic. Corporate. A bit, well, dull... And if the job is one which involves email contact with clients, for example, you don't want prospective employers to think that you lack written communication skills or the confidence to draft a covering letter yourself - it might reflect negatively on your ability to carry out the role.
Then there are the minor technical niggles. As ChatGPT is a US-based firm, much of what it writes may come out in American English. Not an insurmountable problem, but you'll have to ensure that you include a special request that the text be written using terms and spellings more common in the UK - it'll need to be very carefully proofread. AI-generated text can sometimes emerge sounding a bit intense. A bit too wordy - as if too much rich vocabulary has been squashed into too small a sentence. It might involve more repetition than a document written by human hand. After all, the machine's only ever considering the next word. It can't think about whether it's already used that term three times in the previous paragraph. It literally doesn't know it's doing it.
It might start every paragraph with formal language like "however", "moreover", "in addition". In reality, that isn't how most of us write. It feels a little formulaic - you know, because it is... And then we come to the fact that some buzzwords or adjectives just feel a little unusual when applied to some roles. Receiving an application for "cutting-edge bookkeeping", for example, might raise some eyebrows. Nobody wants their bookkeeping to be cutting edge. Seriously. We suspect that that way lies not only madness but also all sorts of trouble with HMRC. Finally, there's the danger that the recruiter or the company receives a number of covering letters containing similar, AI-generated, text. You don't want to stand out for all the wrong reasons!
Overall, then, there's an argument that AI can help to get the ball rolling. There's nothing quite as daunting as sitting down to an empty screen, and AI can give you a basic nudge in the right direction. But ultimately, a covering letter has to be something that is carefully crafted by you, and about you. It's your moment to shine, and to kick-start a relationship with the reader which you hope will be a long and productive one. It's your chance to demonstrate why you're a really good match for this particular employer and this particular role - and displaying your ability to draft beautiful and persuasive professional text might be a key part of that exercise. Our advice would be not to waste this opportunity by fully outsourcing it to a computer. It turns out that the best partnerships start with a spark - and that spark usually comes from you.