Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others can help you explore careers, refine your resume, prepare for interviews, and organize your job search.
Like any tool, AI works best when you use it thoughtfully. AI should never be a replacement for your own thinking or voice. The info below will help you use AI ethically, effectively, and strategically in your career development.
Click below for information about how generative AI tools can help you to:
Exploring Career Pathways with AI
AI can’t tell you what you should do with your degree, but it can help you organize your thoughts, bring new information career paths to your attention, and help you to identify the next steps you’ll take to move forward in your career exploration process. Instruct to AI to act like a curious coach who helps you explore possibilities while continuing to ask you clarifying questions. Try this prompt to kick things off:
“Act as a career advisor helping a college student explore possible career paths. Ask me thoughtful questions, one at a time, about my interests, skills, values, experiences, and preferred work environments. Use my answers to guide each subsequent question so that the conversation becomes more focused over time. Once you have enough information, suggest several possible career directions and explain why they might be a good fit. Also suggest a few concrete ways I could explore or test those paths while still in college.”
Once the AI tool has started suggesting career paths for you, give it feedback about what does and doesn’t appeal to you about them, or what questions you still have. It can continue to refine its suggestions based on this iterative questioning process.
Other Career Exploration Resources:
Schedule a time to meet with a profesional Career Advisor who can help you explore possible career pathways.
Learn about many different career pathways that align with your major, and strategies to explore them further.
Explore occupations by career categories and pathways, and use real time labor market data to inform your decisions.
Using AI to Refine Your Resume
AI is much better at editing and enhancing an existing resume than starting one from scratch. We recommend you write your resume first, using a standard resume template and following our Resume Writing Guide, before using AI for further refinement.
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are most useful for reviewing the bullet point statements on your resume, rather than giving feedback about document as a whole. However, if you use a prompt like “improve these bullet points,” the AI tool might simply return generic text and fake outcomes that are objectively better, but aren’t at all what you did during that experience.
Try using a prompt like this:
“Act as a career advisor helping a college student strengthen a resume entry. I will provide the job title, organization, and my current bullet points. First ask me thoughtful questions, one at a time, about my responsibilities, challenges, skills used, and the impact of my work. Use my answers to guide each subsequent question so that we uncover clearer and more specific details about the role. Once you have enough information, help me rewrite the bullet points so they show clear skills, action, and impact while remaining truthful to my experience.”
(Then paste in one of your jobs or experiences along with its bullet points)
Many employers use AI tools called Applicant Tracking Systems to screen resumes and narrow down large pools of applicants before bringing in human reviewers.
You can use Suffolk’s own AI Resume Review tool, Quinncia, to get actionable feedback about your resume and to see how an ATS would score your resume. It will suggest improvements that can help your resume get past the first round of AI applicant screenings.
LinkedIn Learning: Applicant Tracking Systems.
Using AI When Writing Cover Letters
One of the most tempting uses of generative AI is for writing cover letters, but it’s also one of the riskiest places to use AI-generated content instead of your own voice. Cover letters are meant to help the reader get a better sense of who you are, and how your unique skills, experiences and goals connect to the organization and job description. If you let AI take the lead entirely, it can be very obvious that the cover letter isn’t written in your own voice.
Try this three-step process when using AI support to write your cover letter:
Step 1: Brainstorming Connections. Each cover letter should be unique, since it matches your unique background directly to a specific job description at a particular company. AI can help you identify some of the connections that you may want to highlight in your letter. Try somthing like this for your first prompt, along with an attachment of your resume and the job desription:
“Act as a career advisor helping a college student tailor a cover letter. I will provide my resume and a job description. Analyze both and identify the most relevant experiences, skills, and themes that align with the role. Then ask me follow-up questions, one at a time, to better understand my experiences and motivation. After that, suggest the key points and examples I should include in my cover letter, and explain why they are important for this role. Do not write a full cover letter, but instead help me identify key elements to include when I write it.”
Step 2: Write Your Cover Letter. It might be tempting to ask the AI tool to write the entire cover letter for you based on what you brainstorm in the first step. However, it is far more likely to sound authentic and personal if you write the first draft yourself, using the examples and connections you generated in step one as a helpful tool. You can use the Suffolk Cover Letter Guide to help you through this step.
Step 3: Revise with AI Support. Once you’ve written a first draft cover letter in your own voice, you can use AI tools to help edit and refine your work. Try attaching your draft cover letter to a prompt like this:
“Act as a career advisor reviewing a student’s cover letter. I will provide my draft and the job description. Evaluate how well the letter is tailored to the role, how clearly it communicates my relevant experiences, and how effectively it shows my interest in the position. Suggest specific improvements to strengthen clarity, specificity, and alignment with the job. Point out any areas that feel too generic or could apply to many roles. Do not rewrite the entire letter; focus on targeted feedback and suggestions that help me improve it myself.”
Other Cover Letter Resources:
Schedule a time to meet with a profesional Career Advisor who can give you expert advice as you refine your cover letter.
A primer written by the Suffolk Career Center team to help you write the best possible cover letters for your applications.
Preparing for Interviews with AI
AI can be a powerful tool for interview preparation, but the goal is not to memorize computer-generated answers. The goal is to think clearly, tell strong, specific stories, and communicate your experiences with confidence
AI works best when it helps you practice, reflect, and improve over time.
Try this prompt, along with an attached job description and your resume, to help you get started:
“Act as a hiring manager helping a college student prepare for an interview. Ask me one interview question at a time for the position description I’ve attached to this prompt. After I answer, ask follow-up questions that help me clarify my examples, skills, and impact. Guide me toward stronger, more specific answers. Avoid giving model answers until you have asked multiple questions and heard my responses.”
Pro tip: Use your AI tool’s voice input method to give your responses. This will help you to say your answer outlout in real time, and will also make sure that your response sounds natural when spoken, as opposed to sounding like written, rehearsed content.
More advanced: After you’ve answered a number of questions in the same AI chat thread, you can ask for some higher-level feedback to help you prepare content for your interview. This prompt might look like:
“Based on my answers, what themes or strengths am I consistently showing? What are 3–5 strong stories I should be ready to tell in interviews?”
Other Interview Preparation Resources:
A Career Advisor can walk you through the interview prep process, and can conduct a mock interview so you feel more confident.
This tool will ask you to respond to interview questions on video, and gives feedback about your content and delivery.
Check out these guides developed by the Suffolk Career Center to help you prepare for before, during, and after an interview.