How College Students Can Use AI to Help Them Find a Job

College students looking for summer or full-time jobs are faced with a new and powerful tool to use in their search. Grown and Flown sat down with Christine Cruzvergara of Handshake to learn the many ways students can make the most of AI when they are seeking a job.

G&F: Generative AI is already changing many things about the college experience, from the way students conduct research to how they search online. Should students modify what courses they take or how they prepare for the job market because of this new tool? What do they need to do to be AI-ready when they speak to potential employers? 

CC: The biggest thing you can do as a student right now is to expose yourself to Generative AI: use it, try it, experiment with it, test it out. Giving yourself exposure is really important, because employers will expect that you have some level of knowledge around basic Gen AI. So if you don’t know about it, learn about it, research it, then use Chat GPT or a number of other Gen AI tools that are out there and just get familiar with it. That’s probably the most important thing. 

You don’t have to change your major or the classes that you’re taking. It’s more a matter of exposing yourself to the new technology and continuing to study what it is that you are most interested in. Once you do that, you can actually start to look for the intersection.

How can Generative AI (Gen AI) actually teach you or give you even more guidance around some of the things that you’re really interested in? I was just listening to a super interesting podcast between Adam Grant and the CEO and co-founder of Khan Academy, and how this March they just started a new beta experiment with Khanmigo which is their online tutor AI tool. And what that tutor can do is absolutely amazing in helping to take a student’s interest and then apply it to all the different subjects that they might be learning. 

G&F: How can AI help in a job search?

CC: One of the easiest ways that you can use Gen AI is to pop in a job description that looks interesting to you. And then put in your resume and have Gen AI do a quick scan across the two to tell you if it looks like you’re a good fit, or if there are certain skills that you’re still missing and that you might still need or need to highlight for an employer to be an even stronger candidate. 

The reality is that you may have that skill that an employer is looking for and simply have just forgotten to put it on your resume, and AI can help you notice that. Or maybe you don’t have that skill yet. And now you know what else you might need to go work on. 

You can also use Gen AI to help do some of your research. I often find that students don’t do enough research in their job search. What they’ll do is they go to a job board, and start applying for a bunch of jobs and then they’ll wonder why they’re not getting interviews or they’re not getting calls back. And often it’s because they haven’t tailored their materials in a way that actually speaks the language of the industry or the roles that they want to go into.

So once you decide, okay, I’m really interested in going into finance or I’m interested in going into management consulting or I’m interested in being a product manager for a small startup, then you need to learn to speak the language of that industry. 

One of my favorite things to ask Gen AI is, “I’m interested in being a sales engineer. What is some of the jargon and language that sales engineers use that I really need to know?” AI will give you a glossary of some of the terminology you need. Once you know the appropriate language and jargon, you can figure out how to translate your skills in the way they can best be used and talked about in that profession.

G&F: That’s brilliant. I love the idea of using AI to look at your resume and look at a job and see where it matches up and where it doesn’t. How early in college experience should students begin to explore internships and career options? Parents always seem to want their kids to start early, is this a good idea? 

CC: So honestly, I’m with the parents. The earlier you start, the better. And the reason for this is that the biggest part of your job search process is actually self-awareness. If you think about it, like a business, you are the product and you are trying to market yourself. You’re trying to market yourself as the product. You can only do that if you actually know yourself because you have to thoroughly know the product. 

So your early college years should be spent actually doing a lot of self awareness type exercises, which sounds really fluffy to a lot of people but actually is not fluffy. You could think of it as essentially like product-market fit, if you wanted to use more business terms. 

Part of what you can do as a freshman or a first year student is actually take a lot of classes, see what you’re interested in, join a lot of clubs, see what you’re interested in, actually pay attention to what are the activities or the subject areas or the topics where you seem to be most engaged? Your curiosity is piqued, you want to ask more questions. That is a signal to you that there is something there and you need to make note of it.

Over time you will notice what you most like to do

What you’ll begin to notice over time are trends like, it seems like I really love trying to solve hard problems or it seems like I’m really analytical in the way that I think through things, or it looks like I really like working where there’s a lot of structure already in place. Or, I love things where I get to work with a lot of people and really help people. 

Knowing those themes is going to help you to figure out what it is you want to do. If you don’t already know, it’s going to help you hone in on the types of job roles you might want within certain industries based on what you’re noticing in those particular patterns. I think it’s never too early to start talking to people and networking and getting to know what it takes to get into that field. To get ideas, you can talk to professors, young alumni, even people from your town when you are home for the holidays. 

Every student that’s in college or university has access to a career center. And if they’re not already using their career center, they should be because once you graduate, a career coach is very expensive. So, why not take advantage of all of the advising appointments they have and the programs and events they’re offering. If nothing else, it’ll help you know what you don’t want to do and that is useful information. 

Handshake works with thousands of colleges and universities

Handshake works with over 1400 universities and colleges. It is something career centers usually purchase an annual subscription to and provide to all of their students. Every student is able to access Handshake for free to use all the resources of the career center and connect with students on other campuses.

So, as a student, let’s say for example, I was a Berkeley student, I would go into Handshake and I would be able to make an appointment with my career advisor at Berkeley. I could attend events that Berkeley has specifically put on for me based on my interest and the industries I want to go into. I can go to career fairs that my career center has suggested for me. I can get resources on how to write a resume or how to do a cover letter or how to network or more specific things that are niche to my industry or job role. All of those resources would be in Handshake. 

I can also get connected to alumni and or other students at other Handshake schools. So let’s say I’m at Berkeley, but I actually really want to go to New York because I want to go work on Wall Street. But I don’t really know a lot of people because I’m from California and I don’t know people out on the East Coast.

Now I can network with a student from NYU who is in one of the 1400 Handshake schools. So I could find a student that goes to NYU and I could ask, can you tell me what it’s like to live in the West Village? Can I actually afford to live there? Handshake is also creating user-generated content where students film themselves and share what various work experiences were like to help other students who may be looking at that opportunity. 

G&F: What career or personality assessments do you recommend to students who are still in the process of exploring their career interests? Are there tools that you suggest?

CC: All career centers typically have some type of assessment that they offer, and it’s usually at a very low cost for students like $20 or $30. The career center can help administer the assessments and then help the student understand the results.

Many assessments are online. They won’t typically be the full assessment that you would get if you go into the career center. The Myers Briggs Type inventory is often a popular one that some people will take and it just gives you a sense of some of your tendencies, which is really more just around self awareness. It just simply gives you more awareness about your preferences.

Another tool that career centers often use is called the Strong Interest Inventory. It looks at your interests and says based on your interests and other people who have your interests, these are the jobs they’re doing. It’s not recommending to you that you should do these jobs. It’s just offering ideas of things you might find interesting to look at. Another favorite of mine is the Enneagram Types because I personally have found it to be very helpful.

Honestly, the most basic way to understand your interests doesn’t require an online assessment or fee or anything, but it’s literally just journaling every day and jotting down three bullet points on what gave you energy that day. If you do that consistently for a solid month, I promise you, you will start to see themes come out of it. And if you can’t see them, share it with your roommate or with your friend and maybe they’ll see the themes in your interests. 

G&F: The last thing I wanted to touch on Christine is if you’re a student and you’re having your first meeting with a career center, how should you best prepare for that meeting. Is there anything students should do in advance to get the most out of that first meeting? 

CC: I’m going to actually reiterate some of the things that I’ve said. Spend time searching for your own interest so that you can say, ‘I’ve been paying attention over the past month and I’m not interested in these things, but I’m really interested in these things’. Even if you don’t know what this means in terms of career, somebody in the career center can help you make sense of it.

They can give you a next step. I would also recommend coming prepared with questions. You actually don’t need any answers to go into a career center. All you need to come in with our questions. So if your question is, I don’t know what I want to do with my life. That’s okay. It’s fine to literally list all the questions you have and come in ready to to be open and to ask them. That’s all you really need to do. The career center will take it from there.

More Great Reading:

Five Ways To Support Your College Student’s Career Development

Christine Cruzvergara leads Handshake’s partnerships with the higher education community, which includes 18 million students from 1,400+ educational institutions. A nationally recognized change agent and expert on strategies to drive equitable student career success, she is regularly referenced in media, such as WSJ, CNBC, Forbes, Fortune, and Inside Higher Education.

Prior to Handshake, Christine was the Associate Provost for Career Education at Wellesley College, where she received the 2017 Career Services Excellence Award from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and the 2017 Innovation Award from Eduventures. She has also held senior level positions and board roles at George Mason University, Georgetown University, The George Washington University, NACE, and the American College Personnel Association (ACPA).