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 min read

ChatGPT for Recruiters: The Full Guide

How to master ChatGPT and gain an invaluable skill for recruitment.

July 26, 2021
Olly Keell
April 26, 2024
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Recruitment is a dynamic field that constantly evolves with technology.

In today's landscape, there are thousands of recruitment agencies and hundreds of thousands of recruiters. So standing out from the competition, especially if you are a new or boutique agency, is a task that you have to pursue with the right preparation.

In the late ‘90s to early 2000s, long before LinkedIn, recruitment agencies had to rely on downloading CVs of candidates onto Floppy disks and mailing them to IT companies or going door-to-door on the high streets with CVs that they printed in hopes of getting an interview for their candidate. Since then, technology advanced and LinkedIn emerged to become the leading platform for recruitment businesses and candidates.

Now, it will be a battle of AI. Those who can master Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the use of Language Models like GPT will be light years ahead of the competition.

With the entrance of AI recruiters to the market, the case for the right useof AI is even clearer.

Let's dive into the best practices for mastering ChatGPT and how to make it specific to your recruitment business.

  1. ChatGPT For Recruiters: Best Cases
  2. Choosing The Right Prompts
  3. Effective Prompting Techniques
  4. Challenges and Considerations
  5. Getting Set Up With ChatGPT: Paid, Premium and Getting Started

1. ChatGPT For Recruiters: Best Cases

Candidate Screening

Recruiters can use ChatGPT to automate the initial screening of candidate resumes. By providing specific prompts like "Summarize the candidate's relevant experience in project management," recruiters can swiftly obtain concise overviews, allowing for efficient shortlisting. Copy and paste the resume into ChatGPT and the options are endless. 

Drafting Customized Outreach Emails

ChatGPT can assist recruiters in crafting personalized and engaging outreach emails to potential hiring managers. Recruiters can input details about their role and company culture, and use prompts like:

"Here is my target company's website: HeroHunt.ai. They are an AI-powered Recruitment Engine that serves as a platform for recruiters to find and engage with up to 1 billion candidates. Compose a personalized sales outreach email based on the URL I provided to the hiring manager about what I find unique about their company and emphasize my work with a similar company in filling their role for a backend software engineer that has experience in Python and Django” .

The Result:

Answering Job Description/Company FAQs

Recruiters often receive a barrage of similar queries from candidates regarding the application process, company culture, or job expectations. ChatGPT can be programmed to handle these common questions, providing instant and accurate responses. Similar to pasting a resume in ChatGPT, you can paste a company’s URL, their description (on LinkedIn, etc), or the job description and prompt: “Here is the URL/Job description/LinkedIn bio of my company, please answer further questions I have”. 

Conducting Initial Skill Assessments

Utilizing ChatGPT, recruiters can design prompts to assess candidates' technical or domain-specific skills. For example, recruiters can request the model to "Evaluate the candidate's proficiency in Python programming" based on information provided in the resume. This enables recruiters to gauge skill levels early in the hiring process.

Enhancing Candidate Engagement on LinkedIn

Having an online presence is crucial - and it entails posting a lot of content. You can leverage ChatGPT to enhance your client and candidate engagement on social platforms like LinkedIn. By inputting prompts like "Craft a LinkedIn post promoting our latest job opening for a data scientist in London," recruiters can efficiently generate content. 

2. Choosing The Right Prompts

The effectiveness of ChatGPT largely depends on the prompts provided to it. The more you put into it, the more information it will have to work with in order to generate a response.

Get comfortable and treat the AI like it’s your assistant. Tell it what to do as you would an assistant. Have a conversation with it, be open.

Here are some guidelines on how to tailor your prompts.

How to talk to ChatGPT: be specific

Specify the information you seek in a clear and concise manner. Don’t be shy. 

For example: Instead of writing up a generic prompt like "Craft a job description for a Python Engineer with Django experience”  

Be very specific and write the following: 

“Your task is to write a job advertisement for a software engineer with extensive experience in Python and Django, as well as robotics and team management skills. The job advertisement should clearly and concisely communicate the required qualifications and responsibilities of the position, while also being inclusive and welcoming to diverse candidates.

Please describe the main responsibilities of the position, such as designing and developing software solutions, working with a team of developers, and collaborating with other teams within the organization. Also, outline the key qualifications and skills required for the position, including specific experience with Python, Django, and robotics, as well as team management and communication skills.

Your job advertisement should be structured in a way that is welcoming to all candidates and emphasizes the importance of diversity and inclusion. Please refrain from using any gendered or biased language, and instead focus on providing a straightforward and clear description of the position.

Finally, please provide clear instructions on how to apply for the position, including any necessary application materials and deadlines.”.



Notice the difference. Be prepared to exercise your fingers and get typing on exactly what you want and where you want it. It’s almost like you’re doing half of the work.

You’ll be rewarded 10 fold.

Use contextual prompts

ChatGPT is powered to be as close to a human as possible and will thus understand the nature of your request better given the right context.

For instance, you can copy and paste the writings of a candidate's resume into ChatGPT, and at the bottom, write your prompt: "Based on the below candidate's resume, summarize their key skills and project experiences related to machine learning."

Iterative prompting

If the initial response is not as precise as you'd like it to be, consider refining the prompt iteratively (the power of words!).

Example: "Refine the previous response, with a greater focus on the candidate's leadership experience in project management."

3. Effective Prompting Techniques

Crafting effective ChatGPT (or other LLMs) prompts is an art form in itself. Recruiters can employ various techniques to get the desired output from ChatGPT:

Multi-Step prompts

Break down complex queries into multiple steps to ensure clarity. When you break it up into steps, it's easier for the machine to understand. As if you're talking to a 5-year-old.

Example: "Step 1: Provide an overview of the candidate's education. Step 2: Highlight their relevant work experience. Step 3: Write the candidate's list of skills in bullet points"

Provide feedback to the AI

Providing the AI with constant feedback on its responses will help it refine future prompts.

Example: "The previous response lacked details on the candidate's project management skills. Please elaborate on that aspect."

When you’re satisfied with the response, be sure to tell it as it will remember that and aim to repeat that in the future.

Example: “I really liked the output. Very well written with relevance to the candidate’s project management skills.” 

Contextual role simulation

You can create prompts that simulate real-world scenarios relevant to the job role.

For example, hiring managers are always trying to assess a candidate's decision-making process and adaptability.

So input a prompt like: "Imagine the candidate faces a tight deadline and conflicting priorities. Describe how they would prioritize tasks and ensure timely project delivery."

4. Challenges and Considerations

While ChatGPT offers numerous advantages, it's essential to be mindful of certain challenges:

Redundant Data

ChatGPT, like any AI model, may present redundant or inaccurate data as it is constantly changing and updating the model. Recruiters should be vigilant to avoid using the same data and generic ChatGPT language. After all, the model is basing a large chunk of its answers on thousands of data points from input from other people doing the same thing. 

Limitations in Understanding Context

While advanced, ChatGPT may struggle with nuanced or highly context-dependent queries. You should frame prompts carefully to enhance the model's understanding.

Regular Updates and Maintenance

ChatGPT and its behaviour are always changing, stay informed about updates to the model and ensure that prompts evolve with the model's improvements. Regular maintenance is crucial.

Learning and integrating ChatGPT into the recruiting toolkit can be a game-changer for recruiters. It's not the easiest thing to master but the more you use it, the more accustomed it will be to your style and what answers you're looking for. As AI continues to shape the future of recruitment, staying abreast of innovations like ChatGPT positions recruiters to thrive in an ever-evolving landscape.

5. Getting Set Up With ChatGPT: Signing-Up, Paid vs Premium

Signing-Up:

To get started with ChatGPT, you can access the free version without any cost. Simply sign up on the platform to begin your AI-powered conversational journey.

Free Version

ChatGPT’s free version is available for everyone to use and prompt an unlimited amount.
You can access it on your phone, laptop, and any other device that has internet access. You will have to sign up and provide an email address and phone number though. 

Paid Subscription

Although the free version works great and has virtually all the same things as the premium version, there are some great benefits to switching to premium: 

1. General Access During Peak Times

Many times, you could be left waiting hours just to access ChatGPT. With premium, you can access ChatGPT whenever you need it, without facing limitations during high-demand periods.

2. Faster Response Times

ChatGPT’s prompt responses can sometimes take a while to load, but load instantly with premium.

3. Priority Access to New Features and Improvements:

Premium subscribers are at the forefront of updates, gaining priority access to new features and improvements.

Although quite challenging to learn and master, It’s important to get as familiar as possible with AI and ChatGPT as the world is heading in a more autonomous direction.

Happy prompting! 

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