If you’re already a fan of AI chatbot ChatGPT, then it’s quite possible you may have used it to help brush up your resume… which hopefully has now landed you a job interview.
First, we want to say, congratulations! However, it’s now quite likely that you’re feeling a bit anxious about your upcoming interview. The fear of being judged by others, especially a potential boss, is something that many of us find overwhelming.
But are you aware that you can also use ChatGPT to help you present yourself in a calm and confident manner during this very important meeting? Well, you can! In this article, I discuss how to use ChatGPT to practice a job interview.
How To Use ChatGPT To Practice A Job Interview
The easiest way to get started right away is to check out our Mock Job Interview Custom GPT. Simply upload your resume, provide your job description and any other relevant information, and this CustomGPT will get you going with a great mock interview.
If you’re not ready for Custom GPTs yet, read on for more ideas on how to use ChatGPT for job interviews.
Interviewing in the Age Of AI
At one time or another, we’ve all been overcome with terror when asked a question that we don’t know how to answer. And that’s something you definitely don’t want to happen when you’re in the middle of an interview for a job that you really want.
During one of the most important occasions in your life and career, a great job interview means giving your best first impression. This also means speaking well and quickly answering questions, especially when they are unanticipated.
But not everyone is great at speaking well, and with clarity, when they are asked questions on the spot. So, what if there was something that could help you with practicing for your interview that includes prompts related to the job you’re considering?
Not everyone is great at speaking well, and with clarity, when they are asked questions on the spot. So, what if there was something that could help you with practicing for your interview that includes prompts related to the job you’re considering?
Well, you may be pleased to discover that the new AI wonder tool, ChatGPT, can be used to help you prepare for the types of questions you may be asked. You can use AI to be more prepared and can walk into the room without feeling nervous, or dealing with sweaty palms and armpits.
Practice Question Tips For ChatGPT
Of course, the types of questions that will be asked during your interview will be different, depending on the type of job you’re applying for.
So, for instance, if you’re applying to be a sales associate, you might be asked ‘what lesson did you learn when you failed to close a big deal at your current firm’, whereas if you’re being interviewed to be a hairstylist, that same question wouldn’t be applicable.
Request Ten Questions
This means that the questions you want ChatGPT to give you should be specific to the role that you’re applying for. So, you can start by asking the AI chatbot to provide 10 questions that might be asked during an interview for the specific job title that you’re applying for.
For our example, we chose to request typical questions that we might be asked during an interview for a shift supervisor position:
We followed up the answers that ChatGPT gave us with another question, asking it to provide additional questions that focused more on people skills and behavior.
And these are questions that it responded with:
Finally, because we had an actual job description of a shift supervisor at Starbucks on hand, we asked ChatGPT to generate 10 questions that we might be asked during an interview with this company, and that were more specific to this particular role:
As you can see though, ChatGPT seemed to assume we already worked at Starbucks (see questions 3 and 8), so this is something you should watch out for. Just because it’s an artificial intelligence chatbot, it’s definitely not perfect. It hallucinates frequently! Therefore, you should always be a little cautious of the answers that ChatGPT gives you.
If you find that something feels off with the answers that it gives you, go with your gut. Although it is great at providing questions that might be asked, ChatGPT only does so by stringing words together in a human-like way.
If you find that something feels off with the answers that it gives you, go with your gut. Although it is great at providing questions that might be asked, ChatGPT only does so by stringing words together in a human-like way.
This entire exchange with the AI chatbot took about five minutes, so you can easily arm yourself with potential questions that your prospective employer may ask you.
Using ChatGPT to help you with this process will mean that you will feel less nervous, and more confident in your answers when your interview happens.
ChatGPT For Mock Interviews
Of course, it will be your job to figure out how the questions that ChatGPT gives you relate to your actual career accomplishments, as well as the position that you are applying for.
But this isn’t anything that you need to worry about because you can also ask the AI chatbot to conduct a mock interview with you.
ChatGPT is a chatbot that has been designed with a specialized AI language model, so it was made to improv with the user, not to provide particular facts.
So, as long as you don’t need complete accuracy in your answers, you can use this AI chatbot to respond to the words that you give it, and thus have a pretty decent conversation.
To begin our mock interview, we asked ChatGPT to ask us one question that might be asked in an interview for a shift supervisor role at Starbucks, and then give us feedback on our answer:
As you can see, we weren’t happy with the answer we received, because again, the AI chatbot assumed that we were already working at Starbucks, when we had explicitly told it before that it was the job we were applying for.
Along with a new question, we ended up getting an apology, LOL:
Then we gave it our answer to the question:
And this is the feedback we got from ChatGPT, after having asked how it ‘thought’ we should answer the question instead:
Of course, you can repeat this process over and over again with the original questions that you got from AI chatbot, as well as receive feedback for your answers.
This is super helpful to practice being mock-interviewed.
What ChatGPT can’t do is give you feedback on your body language, or let you know if your answers are coming across as non-cohesive. It also won’t be able to rate your overall performance like your interviewer will. But it’s still a good practice tool if you need it.
One of the last things we asked ChatGPT is whether or not we needed to be aware of any potential slip-ups that might happen during our interview, and this is the answer it gave us:
And finally, we wanted to know whether ChatGPT could give us some information on the culture of Starbucks, just like it told us we needed to know to be better prepared for the interview:
If we were completely unprepared for our job interview with Starbucks, then these details might have helped us.
However, considering that simply visiting the company’s website would give you so much more, in terms of the brand’s ethos, you would be better off doing that instead of wasting time engaging with ChatGPT.
How ChatGPT Can’t Help With Your Interview
It’s important to remember that although ChatGPT is a great tool to use, it’s still simply an AI chatbot. This means that it doesn’t have any nuance, and many times it will simply provide answers that sound completely robotic — because it is!
When you’re going for a job interview, the big mistake that many interviewees make is not doing enough research about the company beforehand.
So, although ChatGPT was able to give us lots of information about the mission and culture of the large company we wanted to work for, if your interview is with a smaller entity or startup, then it won’t be able to help you in these areas. You’ll have to pull your sleeves up and do that groundwork yourself.
Although ChatGPT was able to give us lots of information about the mission and culture of the large company we wanted to work for, if your interview is with a smaller entity or startup, then it won’t be able to help you in these areas, You’ll have to pull your sleeves up and do that groundwork yourself.
You should also be aware that most of ChatGPT’s data was created from pulling information off the internet before 2021, which means that depending on the job you’re interviewing for, all the questions and answers from your ‘conversation’ may not be relevant.
Final Thoughts
One of the great ways that ChatGPT can be used in everyday life is as a starting point for first drafts, whether that be for an essay, a resume, or an email. However, it can also be helpful when it comes to mimicking human conversation, just like when you’re being interviewed for a job.
So, now that we’ve given you some tips on how to use ChatGPT to practice a job interview, you can rehearse the scenario by asking and answering the AI chatbot to have a more successful meeting.
Just remember to put your own unique personality behind your answers, so that you don’t come off as robotic during your interview, and leave a good first impression. Oh, and good luck!
