A Guide to ChatGPT for Recruiters

With the launch of ChatGPT, the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on recruiting has become a hot topic. ChatGPT is revolutionary, a tool that can generate quality content in seconds, such as job descriptions and candidate outreach messages. And while there’s concern that ChatGPT could replace recruiters, that's unlikely to happen—it's just going to make your role much easier.

Ahead, you'll learn how recruiters can get the most value out of ChatGPT to supercharge day-to-day work. We lay out insights, tips, and examples to help you get started with a ChatGPT recruiting strategy, including candidate engagement and process improvement.

What is ChatGPT and how does it work? 

Before diving into ChatGPT recruiting use cases, let’s first cover some basics of the tool. 

ChatGPT is a language learning model developed by OpenAI. The GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer, and put simply, it’s an AI chatbot that generates human-like responses to user prompts (i,e., questions and commands that you enter). 

ChatGPT allows you to go from a blank page to well-formed, relevant content almost instantly, giving you the freedom to revise your prompt until you get the exact responses you need.

From the home page, you enter a question or command much the same way you’d begin a Google search. However, instead of receiving a long list of websites and advertisements to parse through, ChatGPT processes and synthesizes data on the backend and returns a comprehensive, summarized response. This takes a fraction of the time it would take you to research a topic yourself, and you can improve the responses with follow-up prompts that include additional specifications. 

ChatGPT is an open-source tool, and since its November 2022 release, companies like Duolingo, Stripe, and even SeekOut, are leveraging GPT technology to enhance their products, customer experience, and workflows. 

How to leverage ChatGPT for recruiting 

Think holistically about all you contribute to your role and the workplace. Now consider what else you could accomplish if you had consistent help with the tedious tasks of your day. ChatGPT for recruiting is the personal assistant you’ve been missing to help you get more work done in less time.

Talent acquisition teams can easily plug ChatGPT throughout their workflows. Some recruiting examples include:

• Writing Boolean strings

• Training yourself on the nuances of different coding languages to help you pivot between business and tech sourcing

• Creating a bank of strategy interview questions to share with hiring managers

There are many more use cases, and in the next two sections we offer a few starting points for leveraging ChatGPT for recruiting processes.  

Tip: ChatGPT was created for general use. For recruiters, there's SeekOut Assist, the first-of-its-kind generative AI tool that recruiters can use to build targeted searches and craft compelling, personalized outreach messages. Learn more about SeekOut Assist. 

ChatGPT recruiting example: How recruiters use ChatGPT to find candidates

An effective way to leverage ChatGPT for recruiting is to find candidates for active roles and talent pipelining. Building a search strategy from scratch takes time, but ChatGPT expedites the process by doing a bulk of the research for you. For example, say you want to start a search for a front-end engineer. The table below illustrates the sequential commands that you might enter in ChatGPT to end up with a targeted search string. 

ChatGPT is a great brainstorming partner for recruiting. The ability to build off subsequent responses helps you generate multiple steps of a search strategy quickly. 

Here's ChatGPT's response to prompt number 4 from our table above:

Tip: If you’re not accustomed to searching with Boolean (or you just want to expedite your search), SeekOut's Smart Match does the heavy lifting and creates complex strings in seconds.

ChatGPT recruiting example: How to draft job descriptions

Sourcer: “Are we ready to kick off the search?” 

Recruiter: “Almost, but I’m still waiting on the job description from the hiring manager.” 

Does that exchange sound familiar? With ChatGPT, recruiters waiting on job descriptions can be a thing of the past. Sending the hiring manager a drafted description based on the role and a few known qualifications can elevate your reputation as a talent advisor and a partner to the business. 

• Example prompt: Write a job description for an event marketing manager at SeekOut, a B2B SaaS company. Write the description with six bullet points for responsibilities. This role will own our bespoke events and sponsorship event opportunities. They must be comfortable working for a smaller company with an all-hands-on-deck approach. They will need to track and report on the return on investment for the events. They will work with B2B customers and across teams internally to meet KPIs. 

• Example of a follow-up prompt: Write a 30-word social post highlighting the event marketing manager role above. The tone should be excited and inclusive.

Many companies already have job description templates with information about the company, benefits, and diversity commitments, but the bulleted list of job responsibilities changes from role to role. Use ChatGPT to draft the responsibilities and proactively forward it to the hiring manager for review. Even if they end up making big changes, they’ll appreciate the initiative and the creative push to get the ball rolling. 

Tip: Job descriptions are a common place for gendered language and superfluous qualifications. Specify the desired tone and focus on inclusion in your prompt, remove degree requirements where possible, and always review ChatGPT’s output before sending it to the hiring manager.

ChatGPT recruiting tips: What to consider when using the tool

ChatGPT comes with many of positives, but there are a few watchpoints around bias, data privacy, and incorrect information to examine in prompts and responses.

• Verify the accuracy of each response. ChatGPT will occasionally generate incorrect information.

• Refine responses through revisions. ChatGPT provides better responses when given follow-up prompts and additional information.

• Use AI to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Review your prompts and ChatGPT responses for bias and familiarize yourself with potential AI recruiting harms.

• Don’t use ChatGPT to make final decisions. AI augments but does not replace human decision-making. Keeping the human at the center of decisions minimizes the potential for unintended (and undetected) outcomes. For example, AI systems should never make employment decisions.

• Don’t input confidential information. ChatGPT is an open tool and OpenAI team members review user information to improve the technology. There are benefits to using paid platforms like SeekOut, that utilize GPT technology and are built with data protection in mind. Learn more about SeekOut’s commitment to responsible and ethical AI usage.

How to get started with GhatGPT for recruiting

Now that you have a better idea of how ChatGPT can help you and your recruiting team, here are tips on how to get started.

• Sign up for an account. Create a free account with OpenAI or explore other options like Google Bard, Jasper or Writesonic.

• Block off time on your calendar. Now that you have an account, block 30 to 60 minutes a week in your calendar for experimenting with ChatGPT and keep a list of notes. When it comes to ChatGPT, allowing yourself the time and grace to learn a new skill is the hardest part.

• Form a group of users. Start a small group of other users across your team or the company at large to share use cases and learnings. Explore the platform together and set a few goals to help integrate ChatGPT into your daily workflows. Working as part of a team increases accountability and provides additional support as you increase your knowledge around ChatGPT.

• Follow ChatGPT influencers. For additional ChatGPT use cases in recruitment and insight on how to improve the quality of your prompts follow AI influencers on LinkedIn like Maisha Cannon, Amanda Halle, and Zain Kahn.

  

Read this next: Top 10 ChatGPT Prompts for Recruiters

Want to hit the ground running with ChatGPT? We've compiled the top ChatGPT prompts to add to your recruiting workflow, and we break down how to strategically construct a prompt to get the responses you need.