Strategies to optimize your resume with AI

Working at the Career Centre has taught me many things, including building resumes that better showcase my skills and provide employers with greater clarity. 

Many students, especially in recent years, have been using AI to build resumes from scratch. Often, AI doesn’t know your proper background and can fail to capture your personality, tone and context — resulting in a generic, untailored resume.

I’ll share the top three ways you might not know about using AI to create more tailored resumes. Hopefully, you can optimize your time and energy towards more tailored resumes and have more bandwidth for other relevant applications as well!

Tip 1: Using AI to get through the Applicant Tracking System (ATS)

If you didn’t know this already, companies can use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to screen applications before a real human reads them. An ATS is software that helps companies filter through many applications to help them streamline the recruitment process. This system searches for keywords and processes data to help select candidates for the next stages of review.

One way you can set yourself up to pass successfully through the ATS software is to use key terms and important terminology from the job posting. This will better tailor your resume towards the job application of your interest.

Using AI to better tailor, in this case, can help create more bandwidth for you. It can be as simple as asking AI to note keywords from the job application so you can apply those relevant terms in your resume.

Sample prompt for AI: 

You are a resume advisor. Extract verb phrases and skills/traits from the job posting to suggest how I can draft strong bullet points based on the job posting’s keywords. Provide feedback on how these keywords align with the role. 

Tip 2: Structuring sentences of relevance and impact

It’s important to include sentences on your resume that give the recruiter enough depth about the context of your previous experiences, while keeping it relevant to the posting. If you’re submitting multiple applications, editing your sentences can take a bit of time and effort, especially when you’re trying to prioritize final exam studying at the same time!

AI can help optimize your efforts and provide an appropriate baseline for sentences you can improve, so you don’t have to do the work from scratch. One way to do this is by giving AI a sample sentence structure to follow and asking it to reframe your initial wording accordingly.

Here’s one of the frameworks I encourage students to incorporate within different areas of their resume to better structure some of their sentences:

• Start sentences with action verbs (in past tense if the experience is from the past).
• Include a relevant skill or task that relates to the job.
• Follow the skill with context from your experience.

Example:

If one of the things the job posting emphasizes is facilitation skills, here’s how you can better target that sentence by tying in your prior experience as a community member at XYZ company.

Sample Sentence: “Facilitated group discussions to allow for smooth transitions and spaces for advocacy-related conversations.” 

Note that the skill is in the past tense, followed by the context.

Sample prompt for AI

Using the framework of “skill -> context -> outcome (written in past tense + started with action verbs),” create sentences for my resume that match key terms from the job posting of _______ (ex: career advisor). Here is the context of my previous experience that you can use to create a few sentences using the framework: “role of researcher and drafted reports.”

Tip 3: Asking for suggestions on varied vocabulary that shows skills in-depth

Sometimes job postings give you a sentence on an important qualification to have, such as “good communication skills.” To be able to demonstrate this skill, you can think about the relevance of that skill to the job you’re applying for. Then, provide a deeper explanation by generating ideas for demonstrating that skill.

Example: What can communication mean?

• Resolving conflicts
• Active listening
• Adapting your style of teaching
• Giving constructive feedback as a coach
• Empathy and respect

Sample prompt for AI:

You are advising me on building resume with tailored skills for _____ (ex: career advisor) job posting. What do communication skills look like for a role like this?

Don’t forget your human touch

• AI doesn’t know your specific context of experience; only you can bring that forward in your writing.
• Verify information and use your judgment based on what is appropriate.
• Try to bring your own tone and story to the table — your unique perspective matters!

For further assistance or guidance on resume building, career and job search strategies, reach out to the Career Centre at [email protected] or self-book appointments on campusBRIDGE.