Laura DeCarlo empowers resume writers and career coaches to six-figure-plus success through Career Directors Int'l at careerdirectors.com.
getty
Is artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT, and now Bard, the top thing keeping you up at night after you’ve put in the time to make your entrepreneurial dream come true? If so, you’re not alone.
I recently conducted an online survey of writers, coaches and related entrepreneurs, and concern over chatbots topped the charts. Further, 84% of survey respondents were not using them at all, and of the 16% who were, very few were tapping into more than the very basest of functionality.
Let’s face it, we didn’t become entrepreneurs to suddenly become supplanted by AI, but we can’t wish it away or ignore it into oblivion. I admit it, my initial knee-jerk reaction to ChatGPT was panic.
I’ve been playing with MidJourney on Discord just for fun to create AI art for months and listening to my artist friends lament its existence. So when I heard praise of ChatGPT for writing, marketing and coaching, I too had my fears. But then I remembered that as entrepreneurs we’ve gotten to where we are because we have grit, fortitude, tenacity and hunger.
Even if things have been cushy for a while, as entrepreneurs, there’s nothing like perceived competition nipping at our heels to whip us into action. We thrive on a good challenge. But I get it. This feels different! You’re probably thinking what I was so recently saying, “But this is intelligence, artificial intelligence. I can’t do it that fast. You see what it can do now and it’s going to learn. It’s going to replace me.”
It might be different, but it’s not poised to replace us unless we let it. Throughout history, savvy salespeople and marketers, both of which entrepreneurs must learn to be, have understood the necessity for educating the public about a problem or need and its solution. This is no different! Further, just because our would-be clients have access to these chatbots and find nifty lists of prompts online doesn’t mean they are any more prepared to utilize them to craft winning outputs than they were before.
There is room for harm with someone who isn’t a specialist in an area accepting a prompt output from a chatbot as the current truth. Remember, despite tons of DIY solutions on the internet today, we as entrepreneurs still manage to demonstrate our return on investment (ROI) and maintain burgeoning businesses!
Here's an example: ChatGPT or Bard may be able to tell someone how to write their résumé, but it may provide outdated formatting and miss key elements that job seekers rely on a professional to know to supply. When a job seeker has lamented to me that they know they could have done it themselves, seemingly filled with guilt or embarrassment, I've always been able to point out something critical: “Your job is doing your job to the best of your ability, not selling what you do. You're no more prepared to sell yourself than you are to repair your car, diagnosis your illness or fix your plumbing (unless that's what you do for a living). Even if your specialty is marketing and PR, when you talk about yourself, you can take all your wins for granted."
With OpenAI and chatbots, the user still has to know what to ask and how to ask it as well as have the ability to interpret and refine the prompts to get the right outcome. With résumés, for example, if job seekers knew what to write about themselves, they wouldn't need to hire a professional to pull the details out of them and make the connections and targeting. This is the same—a bot response will still require the refining skills and nuance of an expert, and it's only as good as its input.
The expertise we've built in our crafts will continue to be our superpower. We provide the link between what our clients don't know they need to know, and we can use AI to make our jobs easier to do it for them.
It’s here, so lean into it. Entrepreneurs adapt or they die, and I know we have the drive to live on! So let's get to embracing chatbots as a benefit. I actually refer to them as our virtual virtual assistant because you type into it like you’re asking someone a question, and its responses can shave hours of time off what it used to take to jumpstart or complete tasks.
For instance, it can give you new ideas and prompts when you are struggling to write, analyze job fit for a job seeker, find different job titles and professions, create targeted interview question lists, craft results-driven phrases out of generic writing, write Boolean search strings, write social and blog posts and client campaigns, proofread, curate, analyze and so much more.
The sky's the limit, but keep in mind it's not perfect. The platforms don’t hesitate to tell us that they hallucinate, and I’ve seen them creatively make stuff up—especially numbers and names. Like everything, there is a learning curve and the need to bring our industry expertise to the party.
Once I got over my initial fear, I dove in head first on both platforms. As I've been sharing a social media tip series of successful prompts we can use, I'm thrilled to get feedback such as, "I would have completely (I mean entirely—forever) avoided ChatGPT and its ilk if it weren't for you. This is exciting and reassuring at the same time.”
I share this because what I want to stress is that you don't have to be an expert to use these chatbots. I’m just putting in the time, and you can, too! The only mistake is in trying to avoid what's here. AI doesn't represent our final stand!
So if it feels like it’s kicking you, let it kick you forward to see all the ways it can benefit you.
Forbes Coaches Council is an invitation-only community for leading business and career coaches. Do I qualify?
