She looks pretty cool, doesn’t she? That’s my new friend, AI-mie, the newly-generated woman that the WordPress image generator drew up for me. She totally looks like she has it going on, in a somewhat decaying urban setting. Ready for action, AI-mie will jump into any fray, with a cool head and a thirst for righteousness.

As mentioned in my last blog, I’ve been without employment for a little while now. Have sent out my resume countless times, only to be met with silence or rejection. Now that half the government is being summarily dismissed, I find the competition has increased significantly. There’s no one else to pay the bills around here, and my stress level has risen appreciably. So what’s a highly-qualified mid-level ex-employee supposed to do?

One afternoon, after feeling particularly dejected, I decided to search for information on grant writing. I’m a grant writer, have been for some time. That, and a copywriter as well. Have been doing this professionally over the years and never really had a hard time finding a job. Until now. So up comes this webinar from Grantable, a AI-assisted grant writing platform. I didn’t know such a thing existed, although I knew ChatGPT had capabilities to assist with grant writing. And after I watched it, I wished I knew about it all along. The platform doesn’t write the grant for you, but once you upload past grants, it takes that boilerplate information and fills it in prompts that you enter, like narrative questions. This saves the grant writer a tremendous amount of time, making the whole process quicker.

Before you think this is cheating, it isn’t. It’s streamlining. Lots of grants that I’ve written ask for the same information: mission, board of directors, need, etc. So the platform fills all that in for you and creates a draft, but as the writer, I would need to make in my own voice. For example, a typical government grant (you know, the ones whose funding was recently frozen) takes about a month to write. They involve a tremendous amount of research, plus the writer has to make a compelling case why funding is required. Often, the writer takes information from one grant and cuts-and-pastes it into another. Grantable would do all that for the writer. This would enable the writer to spend time on research and other aspects of writing the grant. It would cut the process down to two weeks.

I also discovered a couple of nifty platforms that help job seekers do better with interviews. Just upload your resume but strip all personal information from it (name, email address, phone, etc.). Then upload the job that you’re applying to. The platform will create questions the job interviewer will most likely ask, giving you the advantage of preparation. It can also do research on the company you’re applying to, so that when the interviewer asks if you have any questions, you can ask some very logical ones. Also, if you want to be the best candidate for the position you seek, there are ways to match your resume with the job posting. AI will make an analysis to see if you’re qualified for that position.

Now I was brimming with curiosity. Just exactly what can AI do? Or not do?

Experts warn AI users not to depend exclusively on it. Use it as a tool, but examine the answers it gives. Use your own voice. Use it to build a foundation on whatever project you use AI for. Be specific about what you ask it for. ChatGPT is excellent for giving authoritative answers that are 100% wrong, so do your own research.

Apart from ChatGPT, Google has free AI resources and courses that will teach those with little or no knowledge on how to use it. There are paid versions of AI platforms, but the free ones will pretty much do anything you need them to do.

Today’s workplace is changing. Using AI isn’t necessarily the enemy – it’s a new tool. Just like word processors took over typewriters, and programs like Word took word processing to another level, AI will do this for a variety of tasks. It’s also important to remember that it can’t do everything. What it can do is make your work more efficient.

From the experts I listened to in several AI webinars, it’s a good thing to mention on your resume that you know how to use AI. I’ve seen it in job descriptions as well. Pretty soon, it’s going to be standard. Since I need an advantage, I’m going to teach this to myself in between job hunting. After all, it’s free. Why not embrace the change? It can’t hurt, and it might help.