Enhancing the physician job search with ChatGPT

You may have heard or begun to explore how AI programs like Google’s Bard and ChatGPT might play a role in your practice as a physician – from making earlier and more accurate diagnoses to developing personalized treatment plans for patients.

Whether you’re uncertain or excited about new ways of integrating AI into daily practice, there might be other ways these tools can benefit you and your career – even when you’re not delivering care.

From sparking connections with recruiters to negotiating to tweaking your LinkedIn profile, enhancing the physician job search with ChatGPT could be a great move for you. While these tools shouldn’t replace or overpower your job search efforts, they can maximize your time and simplify your current strategy in multiple ways.

Let’s cover a few important things to keep in mind when using ChatGPT during the physician job search:

• What you put in is what you’ll get out of it: To get original and unique results, you’ll need to provide the tool with original and unique prompts. The more details, context and commands, the better – always err on the side of overexplaining.
• AI doesn’t always get everything right: These tools are advanced, but they can still make errors, misunderstand your requests or even have biases. Never blindly send or publish anything without reviewing it for clarity and accuracy.
• Reworking the content is key to standing out: Treat AI-produced content like a rough draft, not a final version. Your communications should stand apart from other job seekers who might be using these tools, too. With your personal touch, the end result should be almost unrecognizable from what was generated for you. If you don’t refine the content or infuse it with your personality, how original can it really be?

With those three considerations in mind, let’s dive into practical uses for AI programs during the physician job search and how to get what you want from them.

6 ways to use ChatGPT during the physician job search

Reviewing and revising your writing 

One of the simplest ways to make a good first impression is to ensure all your communications – including emails, cover letters, CVs, profile descriptions and other content – are error free. Luckily, ChatGPT can help with this in several ways:

• Grammar and punctuation: Get help correcting grammar and punctuation mistakes in provided text and ensure you’re following stylistic guidelines.
• Spelling and word choice: Receive suggestions to correct spelling errors and enhance your content’s vocabulary.
• Clarity, structure and flow: Learn ways to improve the structure and cohesion of your writing and get assistance with simplifying, rephrasing, rearranging paragraphs or shortening the content to a specific word or character count (TIP: this can be a lifesaver for revising cover letters or resumes!)
• Audience optimization: Find opportunities to better tailor your content to an intended audience and adjust your tone to be more professional, engaging or compelling.

If you want ChatGPT to review an email you’ll send to a recruiter, for instance, you might first copy and paste your drafted text into the chat box and put it in quotes. Then, according to your desired outcome, you can input your request:

Introducing yourself and your interest to recruiters

Get help breaking the ice with potential employers during a virtual networking event, on social media or in an initial email. For instance, if you’re attending a virtual career fair and want to draft a potential intro message to send employers, your prompt might look something like this:

Responding to recruiter messages

Let’s say you receive an email from a recruiter about an opportunity at their health system and, in this case, you aren’t particularly interested. ChatGPT can help you construct a polite and meaningful response that doesn’t burn bridges.

The response you receive will also be stronger if your prompt includes additional context, like the initial email sent by the recruiter. Simply paste the email you received into the chat box in quotes, then input your command:

Following up with recruiters

If you want ChatGPT or similar AI tools to help you develop an effective follow-up message to a recruiter, you’ll want to make the intent of your message and the context of your meeting clear in your prompt.

To help the response feel unique to your encounter, try providing a few details you’d like included, such as a memorable moment, topic of conversation or fact you learned during your meeting. Here’s an example:

Help with cover letters and resumes

When you want hands-on assistance reviewing your cover letter and resume, ChatGPT and similar tools excel. There are a few ways you can use it for these purposes, though, including:

• Reviewing current material: If you already have a rough draft of your CV or cover letter, paste it into the chat box and be specific about what you’d like the tool to accomplish. You can request help proofing it, strengthening your wording or even optimizing it with keywords.
• Writing new material: Paste a draft of your resume into the chat box and ask the tool to provide an example of an effective cover letter that encompasses your experience and qualifications. Then, type out any personal strengths or relevant anecdotes your resume might not reflect and ask for those to be included, too.

To get assistance drafting a cover letter that effectively reflects your experience and qualifications, a strong prompt would be:

Assistance with contract review and negotiation

If you’re thinking ChatGPT’s linguistic finesse can replace the help of a contract review attorney, you might want to reconsider. But, if you’re presented with a contract, there are a few steps it can help with before you meet with legal experts:

• Simplifying legal jargon – Paste the contract text into the chat box and ask the tool to rewrite it in layman’s terms.
• Summarizing the highlights – Paste the contract text into the chat box and ask the tool to summarize the key points.
• Drafting messages about negotiations – If you’ve been sent an email by a recruiter and the ball is in your court, include the message you were sent and request an example response.

For example, if you receive an offer but are waiting to hear back from another employer and aren’t ready to decide or start negotiating, ChatGPT can help you construct a polite and professional response that buys you more time. Here’s an example prompt:

Preparing for interviews

Conducting mock interviews is a great way to use ChatGPT to your advantage as you meet with prospective employers.

If you include the job description for the position and your resume in the prompt, the sample questions generated will probably be closer to what you can expect on the day of your interview. Here’s an example:

Optimizing your profiles

Updating, strengthening or enhancing your LinkedIn profile or candidate profiles can be easier and faster with the help of AI tools, too. If you want your profile’s current wording tweaked or enhanced, paste it into the chat box and ask the tool to optimize it for the specific profile you’re updating.

If you’re starting from scratch, just tell the tool what kind of profile you’re creating and the type of information you’re looking to cover. Include your resume for additional context – if possible –, then provide your request:

While there’s a lot we don’t know about the future of AI and every way it’s going to be present in our lives and professions, one thing is certain: It’s here, and it’s likely only going to become more and more prevalent.

However, there’s a lot of autonomy to be gained from building familiarity with these tools and exploring how to harness their abilities – even on a scale as small and personal as your job search. Besides, if staying up to speed means learning how to use AI as you practice, imagine how far ahead you’ll get by using it to help you find the right practice.