As a career counselor, I find AI genuinely useful — and genuinely problematic — depending on how you use it. Here is an honest look at both sides.
How I Use AI to Help Clients
I have developed a three-step process that leverages AI to help clients identify the career paths that best suit them:
- I ask clients to write a 250–300 word narrative that captures their professional background, key strengths, and the specific criteria they care about in a new position — things like industry, role type, company size, and compensation range.
- We review their resume together to make sure it reflects the direction identified in the narrative and contains the right keywords for their target roles.
- We then submit both documents to ChatGPT, Claude, or a similar AI platform and ask it to suggest career directions worth exploring.
What makes this process powerful is that AI can rapidly synthesize market data, industry trends, salary benchmarks, and patterns from thousands of professional profiles to generate realistic, specific suggestions — often surfacing paths that neither the client nor I had considered.
Where AI Helps Most
Beyond career exploration, AI does a number of things very well when it comes to job searching:
- It can identify keywords and phrasing that help resumes perform well in Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) — the automated screening tools most large employers now use.
- It generates clean, professional language and can tailor tone and emphasis to specific employers.
- It is excellent at catching spelling and grammatical errors.
- It can help you prepare for interviews by simulating likely questions and suggesting strong answers.
Where AI Falls Short
Here is where I urge caution. AI-generated content for resumes and cover letters has a distinct set of problems:
Over-enhancement of credentials. AI tends to inflate accomplishments — particularly for earlier-career professionals — in ways that experienced recruiters immediately recognize as implausible. If your resume claims you were a "trusted organizational leader" three years out of college, that claim will not hold up in an interview.
Stilted, keyword-heavy language. In its effort to pass ATS filters, AI often produces phrasing that sounds artificial in conversation. Resumes are ultimately read by human beings, and language that reads like it was generated by a machine leaves a poor impression.
Loss of individual voice. Your specific way of expressing yourself — the texture and authenticity of your professional narrative — is often what separates you from equally qualified candidates. AI can flatten that distinctiveness.
My Recommendation
Use AI as a collaborator, not a ghostwriter. Submit a draft to an AI platform, identify language and framing that resonates with you, and then incorporate it on your own terms. Before submitting anything, step back and ask yourself: Is this truthful? Is this believable? Does this sound like me? If the answer to any of those questions is no, revise until it is.
AI is a powerful tool. Like any tool, the results depend entirely on how you use it.
Jim Weinstein is Virginia and Washington DC's #1 rated career and life counselor, with over 20 years of experience helping professionals at every stage. Schedule a consultation to discuss your situation.