- Showing that you’re proficient in a new technology like AI on your resume is a challenge.
- Until individual industries decide on certifications and courses that determine an individual’s proficiency with AI, it’s up to each worker to show their work and prove to potential employers what they can do.
- Workers must rely on keywords and other relevant phrases to signal to recruiters (or in many cases, AI recruiting software) that they’re proficient in AI technology.
Creating a resume is a daunting task. The rules seem to change every other year — at least in the past. Now it seems they change quarterly, at best, as relevant information becomes irrelevant information, and it seems the only ones who know how resumes should be built are the recruiters and HR departments that are using them to fill positions.
As any new technology begins to permeate the public consciousness, hopeful workers will scramble to become as proficient as possible to land higher-paying and more prestigious positions. Artificial intelligence skills, though, seem to have been expected immediately, despite the limited amount of time it’s been widely available.
The introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) has created an opportunity for individuals willing to learn how to use this technology to their advantage.
Many use AI chatbots as nothing more than search engines — but with enough know-how, you can have these impressive LLMs write complicated code, debug previously written code, write copy, write music, and more.
Essentially, AI in its current form provides the ultimate time-saving tool, but not to those unwilling to take the time to learn how to use it well.
The question is: how can you prove AI proficiency? And, more importantly, how should you feature it on your resume to let employers know they’ll benefit from those skills?
What kind of work may benefit from AI?
To many Americans, AI is an esoteric ideal, nothing more than a lofty vision of a robot that helps you with your homework and keeps you company.
Future iterations might make this a reality, but for now, AI is used mostly by privately owned tech startups and larger companies like Google and Facebook. Alternatively, countless other modern businesses have been using some form of artificial intelligence in their business practices for years.
Despite this relatively limited past use, countless industries could benefit from the use of artificial intelligence in the coming months and years.
Realistically, any position that deals with data, whether it’s parsing data online, searching for related law precedents, creating content, or even reviewing movies, TV shows, and music, can benefit from the use of AI.
Contrary to popular belief, though, the technology isn’t capable of doing the work for you. First, you have to feed the LLMs an appropriate prompt. In a lot of ways, it’s simply like holding the AI’s hand. Where you lead it matters.
For instance, if an individual asks ChatGPT, “Make me a cool website that’s a lot of fun and focuses on hit modern music,” it’s likely that it’ll create a website, but whether that website is what you had in mind is a completely different story.
Are certifications worth it? Is there a widely accepted standard?
In fields such as programming, there are widely accepted standards for each language that unequivocally state “This individual is proficient with JavaScript” (or whatever language you’re studying).
Lawyers and doctors have the bar exam and USMLE respectively, private investigators have a test they have to complete before becoming field certified, and several other professions have a clearly defined direction that they need to work toward before they can write “proficient” on their resumes.
If you search for requirements for specific AI-related positions, such as “prompt engineering certificate” on Google, you’re quickly bombarded by countless websites hoping to sell you their all-inclusive course on the subject that’s guaranteed to help you land a six-figure salary.
Many of the companies offering these courses and certificates have been using the technology for as long as you have, if not a month or two longer, and are in no position to try and teach anyone anything. This isn’t saying you won’t benefit from a course, but it is saying that you can likely do the work yourself rather than paying someone else to learn with you.
As it stands, there simply isn’t an industry standard, for any field, when it comes to AI skill courses and certificates. Due to that lack of an industry standard and applicable courses for AI skills, hopeful employees need to find another way.
How can you show AI proficiency on your resume?
Without a certificate or course work to fall back on, workers must rely on keywords and other relevant phrases to signal to recruiters (or in many cases, AI recruiting software) that they’re proficient in AI technology.
If you’re hoping to show recruiters that you know how to use existing AI to do better work faster, here are some words and phrases you may consider adding to your relevant skills.
- Proficient in utilizing AI-powered language models, including ChatGPT, to provide accurate and engaging responses
- Strong ability to understand complex information and generate appropriate and concise outputs
- Experienced in utilizing natural language processing (NLP) techniques to enhance user interactions
That said, writing that you’re “AI proficient” isn’t enough. You’ll need to tailor this section based on your career field, experiences and various skills. To demonstrate your expertise, it’s always helpful to give specific examples of projects where you’ve used ChatGPT or other conversational AI.
The best case is to create a portfolio that shows the work you’ve been able to accomplish through the use of LLMs. Whether it’s a GitHub or GitLab account that details your work with AI or a portfolio showing the art, content, or websites you’ve created, the more you can show potential employers the better.
Until the industry decides on certifications and courses that determine an individual’s proficiency with AI, it’s up to each worker to show their work and prove to potential employers what they’re capable of engineering.
