It is far too easy to hand off your entire CV, cover letter and any personalised messages to an LLM (Large Language Model) like Claude or ChatGPT and hope that they can get all the hard work done for you. While this is completely understandable and speeds up the application process, employers are becoming increasingly more aware of the use of AI in applications and subsequently more able to detect it. 

How to effectively leverage AI for your applications

There actually are many great AI tools that can be used in the application process and if you use these correctly, they can aid you from start to finish. One use of AI that is arguably the best in the jobseeking process is for interview prep. Starting from the research process, there are many tools that have been developed in order to filter through papers and articles so you do not have to read through everything and ultimately you will find the same information as if you did sift through hundreds of papers, it just saves you time. This is not to say that you should go to an LLM and ask for papers and articles on a specific topic but instead use specific AI research tools since LLMs are incredible but some are still prone to hallucinations, meaning that on occasion their answers contain content that is made up and does not actually exist. However, LLMs can still be used to prepare for interviews. Many LLMs now have a voice feature built in which essentially means you can speak out loud instead of just typing responses. In the jobseeking context, this means you can simulate a real conversation and do as many practice interviews as you would like without repeatedly asking your friends, parents or siblings at the risk of them becoming increasingly less patient with you. This also means you can get a range of interview questions and instant feedback on your responses. Then there is the matter of the actual application, using an LLM to ensure you have a correct and professional structure of your CV or cover letter is a very sensible and effective use without straying into ‘unethical’ territory. You could ask for a quick template or examples of structure for a piece of writing for an idea of how to format properly and professionally, this is particularly useful if you are a recent graduate, looking for your first job or moving into a different industry.