Artificial intelligence has been cropping up in unexpected places for years now, but it’s fair to say no AI platform has had a bigger impact on the general population than ChatGPT. The chatbot was created by OpenAI and released in late 2022, and since its inception, it’s caused major waves – not just in the tech world, but in everyday lives. The bot is wreaking havoc in many industries as businesses hustle to embrace its time-saving features without fully grasping the implications of AI in the workplace. It’s far from universally beloved: A number of people have lost their jobs to ChatGPT, and countless others – particularly those in creative roles – are keeping a wary eye on the technology as it continues to evolve.
That said, many tech-savvy folks have already jumped on the bandwagon and embraced the chatbot while successfully circumnavigating its current limitations – and make no mistake, there are plenty. In spite of the need for editing and fact-checking ChatGPT’s work and the limits of its “knowledge” (as of this moment, the bot’s information database only goes up to 2021), ChatGPT and similar platforms have incredible potential for writing, research, brainstorming, and beyond. Here at Treehouse Partners, we’ve slowly but surely started putting the bot to work for us in a few ways that have cut down on a lot of busy-work in our process. Here’s how we use ChatGPT in our recruitment cycle – and how the chatbot might help streamline your hiring process, too.
Draft job descriptions
Writing job descriptions is a tricky endeavor. In most cases, the goal is to tell a compelling story about your brand while providing details about the day-to-day responsibilities of the job and the requirements for consideration. Poorly written job descriptions are a huge turnoff to prospective candidates, but it’s not always easy to convey comparatively mundane details about job duties and degree requirements in a way that sounds captivating. There’s also the fact that we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, and writing doesn’t come easily to everyone.
The platform is able to draft thorough job descriptions in a clear and concise way with minimal information and prompting. We can input a request as simple as “Write a job description for a VP of HR for an aerospace engineering company” and receive a full-page document with an introduction, details about job duties, and requirements. Naturally, the output is just a start… and it’s critical to edit – the bot may not effectively capture our company’s voice, miss crucial details about qualifications or responsibilities (though it’s absolutely possible to include these in your request), and come up with a few things that simply don’t apply to the role. However, it’s a good starting point and can help flesh out details (especially when a client provides limited information about a job).
Discover potential companies to recruit from
If you’re familiar with Treehouse Partners, you know we work on a broad spectrum of jobs – many of which are pretty straightforward, but some of which are incredibly niche and a little outside of our knowledge specialties. For example, last year, we took on a search for a custom injection molding company – and while the role (Sales Manager) was one we’ve filled many times, injection molding was a field none of us knew a thing about! ChatGPT wasn’t available at the time, but nowadays, we frequently use it to generate lists of companies to target when we’re sourcing candidates from LinkedIn and elsewhere.
All we have to do is open the website and type in a request or question like “List all of the injection molding companies in the United States,” and voilà – we’ll get a great list of companies to search from. You can also include things like “please include links to the companies’ websites” or narrow it down by saying “only show companies with under 500 employees.” Again, research is key: because ChatGPT’s knowledge ends in 2021, there may be new companies that have cropped up, or the bot may have outdated information about business size, focus, etc.
Craft clear, concise correspondence
Professional email, text, and social media correspondence comes naturally to many people. It gets easier with practice, but if you’re a newcomer to the professional world, writing to a superior, or just drafting an information-heavy email, you might feel a bit flustered. What if you make a grammatical mistake? What if you forget to include a key question or insight? How are you supposed to write a long, informative message if writing isn’t your strong suit?
Enter ChatGPT. The chatbot is fantastic at professional communication, organizing information in a way that makes sense, and (most of the time) makes few to no grammatical or spelling errors. As an example, let’s say you’re sitting in on a call with a client, and your job is to take notes, distill them, and send over the highlights and any questions to your boss. You can simply copy and paste your notes along with a request like “Condense these notes into a summary and bulleted list for a professional email” into ChatGPT, and you’ll get a good summation. You’ll still need to proofread, as with any professional email (double-check for spelling and grammar errors, ensure all the pertinent information is present, and make darn sure your boss’s name is spelled correctly!), but in most cases, you’ll have a coherent and high-level email in no time.
There are many additional uses for ChatGPT, depending on your profession. The chatbot is an excellent resource for writing, research, clearing writer’s block, brainstorming, and more. As ChatGPT newbies here at the Treeehouse, we’re discovering new uses for the platform all the time, but the practicalities we’ve discovered have led to increased efficiency and plenty of new best practices. We’ll say it one more time for good measure: The very most important aspect of using ChatGPT is research, editing, and proofreading. It’s not 100% perfect and likely never will be, so it’s of utmost importance to do your due diligence. That said, if you’re hiring, we wholeheartedly recommend putting the chatbot to work for your benefit.