Career Advancement GPT

Anita Brick: Hi, this is Anita Brick. And welcome to CareerCast at Chicago Booth to help you advance in your career. Today we're delighted, actually, more than delighted to be speaking with Jeremy. Chiefly, he has devoted his entire career to helping others succeed in theirs. From teaching kindergarten in Brooklyn to recruiting top students for Teach for America, to leading education in marketing at LinkedIn, he's touched the lives of millions of people in every stage of their journeys.

Along the way. He published the best selling LinkedIn book on Amazon, served as a career coach for military veterans at Shift.org, and MBA student at the University of Michigan, and produced the most viewed video in LinkedIn history. He currently leads marketing at Khan Academy and shares his best career hacks on the Job Insiders.com and of course we have to talk about the book.

It is everywhere. It was a fabulous to read. It's so practical and actionable in chunks is Career Coach GPT. So Jeremy, thank you for joining us. I know that your name is super familiar with our audience, whether it is a LinkedIn masterclass and certainly the book on LinkedIn and this book too. I know you're so, so busy. Thank you for carving out time for us.

Jeremy Schifeling: Oh, it's totally my pleasure, Anita. Thank you for having me on.

Anita Brick: Okay, so this whole AI GPT gets a little bit useful, scary. There are so many words that people use. And I think one of the things with, with your book and what others are thinking and doing is how do you leverage it and not look like everyone else.

And I've heard from recruiters and others that they can tell when it's been ChatGPT or Bard or You.com. Use some good ideas. So let's dive in and let's start with an MBA student who said, “in theory, I like the idea of a career coach powered by AI. That said, I have classmates who are targeting the same roles and companies as I am, and we really think a lot of like, how do you advise someone to positively differentiate themselves and still leverage AI?”

Jeremy Schifeling: I know I love that question, especially because it speaks to the first thing you learn in business school when you take your marketing class, which is in a world of commodities, we have all these products that are basically the same, the one that commands the best market share, the best margin is always a differentiated product. And that's especially true when it comes to our most important commodity, our talent.

And so it would be crazy to go all the way to business school, to really stand out, to get the stamp of approval and then just become a sheep, one of the herd, that's not differentiated to the recruiters. So whether you're using ChatGPT or working with a career coach or just looking for a job on your own, you always want to find a way to stand out.

I think the way that you stand out with ChatGPT is by not giving it the same prompts that everyone else is giving, like writing a resume for a product manager. Help me interview at Google, but instead giving really specific contextual prompts that are unique to you. So what I think every MBA should be doing right now is going to ChatGPT or any of these AI tools and saying, hey, I'm coming as a former kindergarten teacher, I really love leadership, I love communication, I love data analysis. Meetings drive me crazy. What could be a good fit for my skills, and we'll downplay some of my weaknesses. And when you have that kind of specific context, ChatGPT is so much more effective because it can recommend personalized pathways, personalized stories, and positioning not just the same things that it's given to everyone. That's how you stand out.

Anita Brick: Okay, so let's say you and I and 12 other of our friends are all looking to go into strategy consulting. How would your advice change?

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah for sure. So I think in that case you've got to figure out what are the things that differentiate you even before AI existed and then use AI to turbocharge them.

So for instance, maybe you look in the mirror a little bit and you start to say, okay, in the course of my career, I've had a handful of flow moments. Maybe back when I was an architect before school, the thing that really got me excited was getting to serve others, getting to understand their visions, their goals, and helping them realize that in physical form.

And then when you had that self-awareness, which is probably very different than your classmates who are driven by financial models or by corporate success or whatever it might be, then you can use that in your ChatGPT prompts to say, help me explain this through the lens of a consulting recruiter. What language from McKinsey, Bain and BCG could I use to really demonstrate this strength on my resume or on my LinkedIn profile?

And so ChatGPT can't tell you what to do with your life, but it can take the things that you already know about yourself, and it can amplify them and turn them into really powerful storytelling.

Anita Brick: I agree. There is one thing though, that I'm not sure about. Perhaps you can shed light on this, and this happens to be another MBA student. And she said, “how can I gain support from my Career Coach GPT that includes the viability of my choices, given market conditions, competition, and gaps in my skills, knowledge and experience? That would be super helpful.”

Jeremy Schifeling: Let's just call it the elephant in the room. ChatGPT and a number of its competitors are using data from 2021 and before to predict the future.

And so as a result, you know, we all know that when you build out a model, garbage in=garbage out, and if you're coming in with stale, outdated data, you may get recommendations for career paths, for industries, for positions that just don't make sense here in 2023. So in those situations, we're trying to build a digital crystal ball.

I wouldn't go to a tool like ChatGPT. Instead, I would go to Google's bar or Microsoft's Bing Chat because they're combining what those companies do best, which is live search with the power of AI. And then you get the best of both worlds, because the AI crunches the live data straight off the internet and is able to make better predictions based on more current data.

Anita Brick: It totally makes sense. Here's one thing that I'm curious about, and so is another alum. He said,” I struggle with connecting and building advocates. I seem to ask the same questions everybody else does. And I'm thinking that AI is going to make that worse. What prompts would you ask a bot that might help me understand what new questions I can ask the person with whom I'm connecting?”

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah, this is such a powerful question because it starts with this important insight, which is, we're not just going out into the world asking alumni to give us a referral or give us a job. We have to build a real human connection first. Quite ironically, AI, the least human thing possible, can help us be even more personal in these conversations.

And here's how: the old school way of doing this, the way that I did it when I was an MBA at Michigan, is I would go to Google,  and I would say, give me a list of informational interview questions, and there would be some random website that would say, ask about a typical day in the job. What do you like about the job? What do you hate about the job?

And that's fine. Better than having no questions to ask. But those questions are inherently generic. If you want to take it to the next level. In terms of personalization, the prompt you want to put into ChatGPT is, here are all the things you should know about me, and you could upload your resume or your LinkedIn profile.

And then here's the alum I'm speaking to. Here's their job. Here's what they do. Please generate ten questions for me that will help me understand if this alum's job is a uniquely good fit for my skills and my passions, and the questions you get at this time are just so much better because they don't apply to everyone. They only apply to you.

As an example, if you said, one thing that's really important for me is I have a chance to work on something that's very interpersonal. I love working in teams. One of the first questions ChatGPT will generate is, in your job is X, tell me about how you work with others. Is it collaborative or is it independent,(which) already focuses on the things that matter to you.

So when it comes to building really great relationships, building rapport, be a little bit selfish. Ironically, having that self focus on what you care about will lead to a richer conversation.

Anita Brick: I totally agree. That requires, it absolutely requires that you spend deep quality time in understanding not just what your classmates or your friends or other alumni or other people in your field want. But what you want. It sounds like that is really crucial to move AI from replying with generic answers to things that are like, oh my gosh, that is so true. And then you build those connections. I love that, Jeremy.

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah, I'll just give a little bonus hack here. Anita, it is so true that the biggest dark side of business school is FOMO. The sense that we're always comparing ourselves to our peers. And if it doesn't stack up in terms of the sexiness of the brand name or the compensation, we start to question our own choices, question ourselves. So to avoid that temptation to kind of bind yourself to a mask, Odysseus style, you could actually use ChatGPT to keep you focused.

You could say, “ChatGPT, pretend that you are a career coach and interview me to understand the ten things most important about my skills, my passions, and my unique strengths.” And it will actually go through that process of asking you questions and starting to pull out these things that you may have never even noticed about yourself.

No, I want to be really clear. For all the career coaches listening out there, this is not a replacement for a human coach. But of course, if it's 3:00 in the morning and you just need to get these insights, ChatGPT will be there for you and it can guide you through this process of self-awareness, leading to awareness of the opportunities that are right for you.

Anita Brick: I agree with you that I think that if you do that first and then go to a live coach, you're going to get better data there too.

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah, yeah. Just to sort of jog that creative process. So you're ready to tap into those memories of what actually feels good for you viscerally.

Anita Brick: Got it. One of the follow-ons to that, an MBA student said, “I've heard from recruiters that they like to see something that can give them clues for cultural fit. whether it's in a resume, even more likely in LinkedIn, this seems to be missing from the example in your book. How can you use AI to do that?”

Jeremy Schifeling: Well, I will just call out the cultural fit, at least in the world that I operate in.

So technology, Silicon Valley, and things like that is starting to become a little bit of a red flag in the sense that it's been used to homogenize industries. If you have a lot of white men starting startups and they say we have to have a culture fit, that tends to look like another, a lot of white men join it.

So just want to call that out. That being said, it is a real phenomenon. Of course, there's an idea that we can't just hire someone who's really talented. They have to work well in a team. The way that I think you signal that is less than the profile, less than the resume, and more in the interview stage. This is kind of interesting, because you would think that the interview stage of all the stages of the job search process would be the least amenable to using AI because it's so human, it's so interpersonal, but it turns out if you boil down the things that humans are looking for when we evaluate each other, there's a lot of interesting sociological work under the label of stereotyped cognitive sort of evaluation. We all place each other into these buckets of: is this person competent? Do they know what they're talking about? And are they warm? If I have to do the job, would I want to do the job with them? As a result, if you're training not just on competence, you know having your star answers and ChatGPT can help with that, but also on warmth, could you use AI to practice your interview techniques so that you're coming across in an engaging manner? As an example, if you go to LinkedIn, if you go to the job section, there's a little tool called “Interview Prep” on the left hand side, and it will walk you through what the academics would call “Deliberate Practice”, diving into the things in the interview room you can actually control that actually matter.

Things like how fast you speak, whether you vary your tone, whether you're relying on verbal crutches like “umm” or “Ah”, and then ultimately, you can use that to come across as warm or more engaging and more of a culture fit for that organization.

Anita Brick: Right, that really makes sense. So let's shift gears. There are people who had very specific questions about some of your hacks. So one was, “I understand how important a headline is in my LinkedIn profile. I'm moving from engineering in energy to strategy consulting. How would you advise someone to have recruiters and hiring managers see me as credible in the switch without signaling my employer. I'm looking to leave. Not sure that I want to get laid off.”

Jeremy Schifeling: Absolutely, I get it. And so we're going to dive deep not just into AI, but also into the Linkedin algorithm. For everyone listening out there is really the definitive algorithm here in 2023 that you recruiters are using to judge your fate. So we all know about the applicant tracking system. You know you apply online, but that's specific to one company. LinkedIn has an algorithm that rules them all. Whether you're a Google recruiter or McKinsey recruiter or Goldman recruiter, you're on LinkedIn scouring for talent so that algorithm matters most.

And the first thing that the algorithm always looks for, when a recruiter is inside LinkedIn, and this $10,000 year tool that LinkedIn costs LinkedIn recruiters, does the headline match the job title the recruiter wants to fill? So as an example, if I'm a recruiter at Google, and I search for a product manager, it's going to prefer, (when) all things being equal, people who have product manager somewhere in their headline. The reason why the headline matters so much, is it's the shortest, most limited section on the profile. So it's harder to game, it's more authentic, and it gets more weight in the algorithm. And so ideally, you're going to put in there aspiring product manager exploring product manager opportunities, some kind of variation that gets you credit in that critical section.

But even if you can't do that because again, you're worthy, your boss is going to see your profile and that's going to be game over for you. You can still do the next best thing, which is going to your profile, going to the open to work section right at the very top, and then sending a very stealth mode type signal to recruiters saying, hey, I want to be found for product manager jobs, but I only want you to see the signal. Not my boss, not even the recruiters at my company.

And you can turn that mode on so your signal goes to the exact right people. None of the wrong people.

Anita Brick: Got it. That makes sense. I think that people viewed it as on or off, but it can be on for recruiters external to your company.

Jeremy Schifeling: I know there's always a debate about that whole little green sash that sits on your profile photo, right? Says “Open to work”. And there's been a lot of debate back and forth about does it help you? Does it hurt you? Does it make you look desperate? I've done a lot of surveys of my own on LinkedIn, where the answer is kind of, it's not really clear whether it makes any difference. The reality is don't get caught up in that debate.

Just turn the signal on. But turn on to the stealth mode version that I'm talking about. You don't get the sash, but you do get all the right people seeing your signal.

Anita Brick: I love that. It gives more control to the person, to the candidate. It mitigates quite a bit of the risk. Here's a related question. “Hi Jeremy, you mentioned that company recruiters will look for candidates who already have connections in their organization. My concern is more than a few of my connections may not even remember me. What advice would you have to minimize the negative impact of, I don't know, him”

Jeremy Schifeling: So I'll be really clear about what the recruiters experience is like. One of the biggest mistakes we make as job seekers is we attribute too much thought and too much careful consideration to what's ultimately an instinctual job.

So look at some of the data from Shrm. You know, the largest HR organization in the world, the average recruiters in their surveys are juggling 30 to 40 open jobs at a time. The average job attracts 250 resumes. So we're talking about 10,000 resumes that are on recruiters desk at any given moment. And that means that a recruiter just doesn't have time to think about all these considerations and do a complex analysis of your profile or your resume.

Instead, they're operating at six seconds a shot, six seconds a resume, eight six seconds, a LinkedIn profile. So what are they looking for when they run that filter? When they say, show me someone who has connections at my company, which again, they can do in that LinkedIn recruiter tool, they're not going to go in and look into all those connections, basically a point in your favor that says, all else being equal, this person is more likely to accept an interview, offer to accept a job, offer to take the job because they have some connective tissue to this company.

And yeah, maybe it would be nice if we could get a referral or background check through someone, but that's not the thing they're thinking about in those six seconds. They're thinking is candidate A in or is candidate B in? And I've got to make a decision now and move on to the next thing. So don't attribute too much sort of wizardry behind the scenes. It is a pretty much instinctual level decision of does this person have the stuff pushing them in the right fit?

Anita Brick: But at some point some of their recruiters will reach out, especially if their first level connections and some people just accept everybody's connection.

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah, I wouldn't worry about it, and here's why. When you are building a career, as we were talking about before we start, Anita, you've got to recognize that a career is going to be wide. It's going to be exploratory. It's not going to be this linear path right from here to there. And that's the rest of your life. And so as a result, you want to be casting a wide net throughout your career, not just because of LinkedIn, but because it will expose you to more opportunities. You know, if you study that “power of weak ties” research from the 1970s, which was recently confirmed by MIT and LinkedIn across 20 million users, and another experiment they did last year, it's these people that you kind of are in touch with at the periphery of your network, not your best friends, not your family, who are the ones who are most likely to expose you to new opportunities.

So it's great to have weak ties. It's great to have those people. Don't feel like, oh my goodness, I have to be best friends with everyone in my LinkedIn network, because that will keep your LinkedIn network small or keep it homogenous. It will prevent you from exploring all the stuff that's really out there.

Anita Brick: Okay, not to belabor this, but what if you were being asked about me and you're like, I have no idea who she is, right?

Jeremy Schifeling: Right, right. So I'll be clear. If you have your heart set on a certain company, then really what you should be doing is activating everyone at that company, reaching out, getting back in touch, setting up a quick coffee chat or a zoom chat. And again, you're not just doing it just to reactivate whatever that means. You're doing it with a specific goal in mind, which is the data is so clear more than anything we've talked about up until this point, referrals from internal employees are the single best way to get hired, ten times more likely to be hired if you're a referred candidate, and if you just apply online. Not just this sort of fuzzy strategy of, hey, let me just reengage. You should be going to those people, me and say, hey, can we get back in touch? I would love to pick your brain about this opportunity. I'd love to learn more about the company. And then maybe someday I'd love to ask you for a referral because I know that can give me a massive head start in this new career change.

Anita Brick: Not too pushy?

Jeremy Schifeling: No, no. So here's the thing. And I'm so glad you're asking these questions. In fact, these are the exact questions the student asked me, ask me all the time: “but I've been taught to be so polite and, you know, never ask for anything and all that.” But then put yourself into that alumni shoes. You are on the inside and you refer someone. So if I were to refer you, Anita, for instance, at Khan Academy. There are so many benefits. Number one, there's a benefit of generativity. Hang it forward. We're all hungry to do. There is the benefit of good karma. Feeling good about my teammates having a good reputation with the team. And then finally there is that transactional, extrinsic benefit of I'm going to get a paid referral bonus of $3,000, at Khan Academy, even as a nonprofit, because you were hired based on my referral.

So when we don't reach out, when we don't engage those insiders, we're not only robbing from ourselves, we're robbing from the insiders as well, because we're taking away that win-win.

Anita Brick: I love it. That's great. So a question an alumni asked, thanks for the tip of “skills density”, and maybe you can share a little bit what that means, being more important than just having a skill listed once in the section on skills. How much weight is given if the skill was acquired and maybe not used for a long time?”

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah. Great question. What this alum is talking about is inside the LinkedIn algorithm and also inside the applicant tracking system algorithms, there is basically a very simple AI from 20 years ago that is doing a rudimentary match. It says this job description calls for SQL, Python, R and Matlab, and you only have two of those skills listed, so you're only a 50% match, which is not as effective as someone who has all four of them.

And then because they can't really know the depth of your experience, you know, an algorithm is just looking at signals. It's not looking at your real life on exposure. It basically says, okay, the more times you list it and the more sections you list it in, the more likely that you really do have that skill. That's the idea of density.

So that being said, my recommendation is if there's a skill that's very important in job descriptions, you're seeing again and again, and that's a skill that you have deeply, it would be crazy to only list at one time, as opposed to incorporating it at least a couple times in your experience, your summary, your skill section, maybe even education or projects. And then you get the benefit of density.

But I do want to call out one thing, and this is really fascinating, Anita. There was a startup called Talent Works. It was doing some really fascinating job search research about five years ago. They applied for thousands of jobs algorithmically, and they were changing little things in the resume to see what and how that influenced your chances of getting an interview.

And Anita you had to guess, what do you think was the absolute optimal level of match rate with the most important keywords in the job description that led to the most interviews?

Jeremy Schifeling: Okay, I have no idea. So I'm going to say 70%. So I would think 70% too because it feels directionally right. But it turns out if you look at the graph, it's 50%. After 50%, there's a slow but clear decline all the way to 100%. And what do you think could be driving that Anita?

Anita Brick: Well, sometimes people just overload keywords to gain in the system.

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah. So there's definitely that you don't want a cheater or a gamesmanship person.

Anita Brick: Okay, tell us what the real deal is.

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah I think the real deal…and again this is only in the data. So we don't have the actual, you know, recruiters voicing over. Right now if you go back to that stats that I shared before from Shermer about how many jobs have to be filled by recruiters, remember that critical word “to be filled”—it's not enough to bring someone into an interview.

It's not enough to share their LinkedIn profile with the hiring manager and say, oh, how awesome they are. You actually need a body in that seat. And so the worst possible outcome for a recruiter is you find someone who's massively qualified could do this job in their sleep. They go through the entire process and then they drop out to take a better role for that, because you don't want to have that over qualification problem.

50% feels like the sweet spot. Dangerous enough to be, you know, super useful on day one, hungry enough to accept the job and come in with a lot of energy.

Anita Brick: Got it. That makes sense. You and I both been saying is that referral and even behind referral, that endorsement kind of is stronger than anything.

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah. I want to be really clear because we use the word endorsement. I know we're talking about LinkedIn. A referral is not an endorsement on LinkedIn. Oh yeah. For saying that. Yeah, I need to endorse Jeremy for zoom interviews or something like that. And I know the referral is actually someone going inside their ATS and putting in a plug for you along with your resume or better yet, going directly to the recruiter, directly to the hiring manager and saying, hey, Anita is an absolute rock star. If we lose her to Kellogg, we are going to basically regret it for the rest of our lives. So that's the kind of really powerful third party validation that recruiters love.

Anita Brick: Yeah, and that's what I was describing. I remember someone I was working with said, have you ever heard of this? And they're like, what are you talking about? And he said, well, I made a referral through the system. And I also spoke to the hiring manager, and it was in a consulting firm. A senior partner came to me and said, we're calling John. John, I hear that you want us to interview Jeremy. And he goes, yeah. And the senior partner said, John, would you stake your career on it? He goes, yeah. He said, okay, then we'll interview him. That requires building a connection in a way that you said earlier where not only can you do the job, but they want to do it with you. Yeah. Okay. Good. Do you have time for a couple more questions?

Jeremy Schifeling: Yeah. Let's do it. This is so fun.

Anita Brick: Okay, good. That's my goal. All right. An alum said and this is a little convoluted question. So bear with me. You take a very different approach to asking for help from a former member of the team where you received an offer. How can someone mitigate the risk of your request being shared with your new manager before he was accepted?

Jeremy Schifeling: Basically this is the idea that I share in the book about doing a little bit of a background check on your future boss. And it's an interesting thing because, you know, we all know that LinkedIn gives you the power to basically find anyone in the world, but not many of us have thought about, hey, what if we could actually predict the future a little bit, not just choosing the career path that's good for us, but the actual manager?

And the reason I call this out, of course, is we've all seen those surveys. Now, the number one reason that people quit jobs is not the company, not the pay, it's the boss, the Michael Scott. How do we how do we avoid Michael Scott's in our lives? And I think the reality is, even though you could never be 100% sure, there probably is likely to be people in the manager's background in their past work experience who've been in those shoes that you're about to enter, and they can give you a taste of what that's like.

And so what I recommend in the book is using the past employer section on LinkedIn to find people who used to work with someone but are no longer bound by any kind of, you know, current contractual obligation or stock options or anything else. And so they're able to give you a more objective taste about what it was like to report to this person.

That being said, I will tell you right now, I had this happen once. I had a boss at a company they will not name or prospective boss anyway, who said, hey, I heard that you were snooping around about me and I want to let you know that I'm on to you. I'm sort of like keeping them aware of what's going on.

I turned down that opportunity. Anyone who is that sort of, like, nervous about their reputation, that controlling of their image is not someone's gonna be looking out for your image, your reputation and your experience. I will tell you right now, having worked with so many good bosses and I've been completely blessed in my career, the bosses that I worked with would be so happy to be transparent about their experience, and often are through the recommendations you can see on their profile.

I would look for a boss like that, and if you get any kind of pushback, that's probably red flag number one.

Anita Brick: I like that. And I think it depends what the tone was too. With that said, oh, I hear you've been kind of checking me out and I'm so glad you did because I want you to be happy with this relationship, too.

Jeremy Schifeling: Yes. And I will tell you exactly this. This is so fascinating. The other boss that I had done this on right before this event that I was referring to a moment ago, and also heard about it from some of his former employees at Google. And guess what he said? He said, what did they tell you about me? I'm so curious.

And then I knew he was the perfect boss for me because he was hungry to learn, he was hungry to develop. And if he had that attitude, imagine what he could do for my career. And it was absolutely true. He was able to be a huge catalyst for me.

Anita Brick: Well that's great. I love the way you are so passionate about this. I know that that's why people love the LinkedIn masterclass that we have at Booth that you and your partner put together, it comes across as, wow, you really deeply care not just about jumping on the bandwagon of how to use AI for your career, but it seems much deeper for you. I would love to ask you, what are the top three things that you would advise individuals to do to leverage AI to create a more successful and enduring career while like you, Jeremy, expanding their humanity.

Jeremy Schifeling: Oh, that's such a good question, Anita. I'm so happy that you called that out. Because for me, the way I've been thinking about this this entire time, whether it's LinkedIn or AI or any of these crazy algorithms, is actually not about the technology, even though that's a convenient tool, it's about the relationships. And then most importantly, about the opportunities that we have and experiences we have. I think for me, I just met so many people over the course of my life and I've been in this situation myself who just were not inspired by what they were doing. And then I thought about the fact that, you know, I'd gotten sick a couple of years ago, and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get better to recover.

And I was like, is that it? Is that all my window of opportunity to do something really important out there in the world? So you just never know how much time you have. And if I can help even one person or one coach or one career leader, you know, help unlock opportunity for others, that is super meaningful for me.

And so what I would advise just answer the question very explicitly. I think it starts with that famous Steve Jobs quote from that Stanford speech, which is the biggest mistake that we can make, and this is especially true business school, is living someone else's life. And I get it. Business school is a pressure cooker, not just academically, but socially.

Everyone is comparing themselves to everyone else. There is such a clear sense of the hierarchy, you know, the best firms, the best jobs, and then you hear about all these MBA’s ten, 20, 30 years later, who rue the decisions they made because they ended up doing exactly what someone else wanted. But it wasn't right for them. And I know this is a different business school, but I'm really going to call this out.

Anita, before you even touch ChatGPT, before you spend one second with the technology of the future, spend two minutes with the experiences of the past. Look up the Harvard Business School class of, I believe, 1953 or maybe 1963. They had this amazing blog. We're on their 50th reunion. All these guys, and they were mostly guys, unfortunately, came together and look back on their lives and said, here's what I regret, here's what I wish I had done.

And you know what it was Anita? No one ever said I regretted investing time in my family, building great relationships with colleagues, doing stuff that I thought was important. But so many of them regretted choosing a path that was just about pure compensation, or pure brand or pure glory. And these are the guys who garner at that end of that window, and they can give us such visibility into what's possible for us and what's right for us.

So I would start there. I would start to think about your life 50 years from now. And then what I would do today to really build upon that insight is exactly what you're talking about at the very beginning. Come to ChatGPT and before you ask for a resume or a cover letter or an interview question, ask for a path that makes sense for you, your skills, your passions, your experiences.

How do you bring them together? In this perfect Venn diagram that aligns with something you can get paid to do out there in the world? That's step number one. And step number two is to recognize, no matter how fast your heart beats thinking about this path, no matter how much you've thought about it inside your head. As that's as far as those ideas go, that's not far enough for recruiters.

Recruiters do not have ESP or the ability to see inside your cranium. So now we have to convert those insights, those instincts into recruiter language. I think ChatGPT can help with that in the sense that if you say, here's my existing resume as a cook, as an architect, as a kindergarten teacher, please help me transform it into the language of a product manager or a sustainability advocate for an AI developer, whatever it might be.

And now you can do that important bridge building that recruiters will never do for you. When you translate where you've been to, where you want to head next. And then finally, I think this is so critical when you get those interview opportunities and you're ready for the big day, never, never, never fall into that classic business school trap of thinking the human sitting on the other side of the table, it's just like a giant Scantron machine, they're looking for the right answers, the right keywords. Instead, they're looking for the right connections, the right stories. And so I encourage everyone is going into that interview context. Remember what actually brings us together as humans, the shared storytelling civilization that we've come from, the shared focus on warmth and engagement and rapport.

And if you can practice those things with your career coaches or the AI tools that we talked about, then you will not only master all the competence, but also the warmth that your future employers are looking for, which gives you that shot building the career and the life you love.

Anita Brick: It's so encouraging to me, Jeremy, and thank you that you live what you say. Clearly you have made a life and a career and what you enjoy and love, but with the heart of someone who is deeply appreciative for each human being. So thank you for giving us an example of what authenticity and passion really look like. And to me, the warmth will bubble up when you have those things and you deeply care about others as you so clearly do.

So thank you for distilling all of the myriad of hacks that are around there with I making it clear and concrete and actionable and putting it in a foundation where you are a human first and you are here to help others because you care. And so thank you for all of that and more.

Jeremy Schifeling: It was totally my pleasure, Anita. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for all you do to pay it forward to the next generation. I think that's one of the greatest gifts we can ever give.

Anita Brick: You're absolutely right. Thanks again. And thank you all for listening. This is Anita Brick with CareerCast at Chicago Booth, keep Advancing.