The recent launch of Google‘s Bard brought another tech giant into the generative artificial intelligence space, alongside Microsoft‘s Bing chat and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
But how many business leaders are currently using AI technology in their day-to-day operations or planning to?
Based on new research, a lot. Half of the companies ResumeBuilder interviewed in February reported using ChatGPT; 30% said they planned to. The data included 1,000 responses from ResumeBuilder’s network of business leaders.
Stacie Haller, chief career advisor at ResumeBuilder, said data could be the tip of the iceberg. Since the survey was completed, more professionals have started using generative AI.
Age and the economy influence the use of AI
Haller said age and the current state of the economy influenced the results. For example, 85% of respondents were under the age of 44 and younger workers are more likely to adopt new technologies.
“If you’re 38 or 40, you grew up with technology in your hands,” she said. “It’s second nature to you.”
Haller said the high adoption rate was also tied to the post-pandemic job market. After scaling up during the pandemic, businesses are adapting to a new economy through automation, she said.
“We first saw ChatGPT replace jobs in the HR department, with people writing job descriptions or responding to candidates,” Haller said. “I don’t know many people who enjoy writing job descriptions, and I’ve been in this world for a long time.”
ResumeBuilder collects hiring data to help candidates create cover letters and resumes during their search.
When companies automate writing tasks, it leaves money available for more strategic areas of the business. According to the data, half of companies implementing AI said they saved $50,000 and one-tenth of companies said they saved $100,000.
The other area where ChatGPT has an impact is coding. Haller said companies are using generative AI to speed up coding tasks and using the time and money they save to retrain and hire.
“If they can generate enough code to reduce the labor cost, they can take their code budget and pay the developers,” she said. “Or better yet, retrain code writers to do the jobs they need to do.”
She said it’s still hard to find senior developers and every bit counts.
How coders are adding generative AI to their resume
CEO Praveen Ghanta founded Fraction, a professional services startup to help tech companies find senior developers, and said generative AI was part of his company’s strategy. AI as a skill set is already a resume stand out.
“We saw it first on the demand side,” Ghanta said. “Now we see it popping up on developer resumes as a skill.”
ResumeBuilder found that nine out of 10 companies surveyed were looking for potential employees with ChatGPT experience. A version of ChatGPT as a resume skill is what Ghanta called rapid engineering.
“For example, ChatGPT is bad at math,” he said, but candidates could rely on their rapid engineering experience to figure out which inputs produce the best generated results. “If you say, ‘Let’s do this step by step,’ in the prompt, his ability to solve math word problems skyrockets,” he said.
Ghanta said the idea for Fraction came when he was recruiting for a previous startup and found talent by hiring part-time developers already working at high-tech companies. He found that developers with 12 years of experience and AI skills still needed help pitching themselves in front of hiring managers.
“The motto du jour when it comes to hiring hasn’t changed, it’s a resume,” Ghanta said. “Hiring managers always want to see that piece of paper, a PDF, and a lot of developers have really bad resumes.”
They are not writers, he said, and struggle to clearly represent their work experience. His team uses an AI workflow to combat this. Clients tell a transcription bot like Otter.AI about their responsibilities, which ChatGPT summarizes in a job resume. With quick know-how, Ghanta said the use of AI has become a sought-after set of tools for businesses.
More recruiting companies using AI, expecting applicants to do so
With the right instructions, ChatGPT can write apps, create code, and solve complex math problems. Should employees worry about their work? Ghanta said that as a founder, he sees new technologies as tools to engage with, and new skills are always a benefit to employers or employees.
“I encourage developers to engage and hone their skills. These companies make it easy to use their APIs,” he said. “From a business perspective, adoption can be competitive because it’s a new skill. Not everyone is doing it yet.”
There are growing fears that generative AI will replace jobs, and perhaps not the most anticipated ones. A recent study found that while telemarketers top the list of jobs “at risk” to generative AI, roles such as professors and sociologists are also at risk.
On the hiring side, 82% of respondents said they used generative AI for hiring in a recent ResumeBuilder update. Of the respondents, 63% said candidates using ChatGPT were more qualified.
“When Photoshop came out, people thought it would replace everything and they couldn’t trust images anymore,” Haller said. “Since the Industrial Revolution, new technologies have changed the way we work. This is just the next step.”