Your guide to exploring careers with AI

This page outlines how AI can and cannot help with exploring career pathways and, if you do choose to use it, how to do so effectively. If you are new to using AI or are thinking about using it at other stages in your career thinking (job-search, interviews, applications), check out our AI and You: Careers, Jobs and Applications page for a broader understanding of effective AI use and our Considerations when using AI page for information about university guidance and how to mitigate challenges presented by using AI in your career thinking.

What AI can/cannot do:

AI can:

  • Generate ideas of sectors or roles that may be of interest, based on the information you share with it.
  • Share basic information about career pathways, based on the information it can find in it’s dataset.

AI cannot:

    • You can also book a Careers Guidance Appointment to discuss this further via CareerConnect.
    • You can also discuss this with a member of the Careers Service by booking an appointment via CareerConnect.

Using the 3 P’s to explore career pathways with AI

If you haven’t heard of our ‘3 P’s’ (Prepare, Prompt, Proofread), there is more information on our AI and You: Careers, Jobs and Applications page.

Prepare

Before using AI to generate ideas about career pathways, it is vital to spend some time reflecting on what is important to you for your next step. This will enable you to prompt AI more effectively and identify if there is anything you need to think about further first.

We all have different foundations to our career thinking, these are made up of our individual skills, interests, priorities, ambitions, values and so much more. Prepare for using AI by reflecting on your past experiences and what you have learnt about yourself from these. Some useful questions are outlined on this webpage: I’m just starting to think about my career (The University of Manchester).

Once you have a list of what is important to you, you will be able to prompt AI to generate ideas that match these priorities.

Prompt

Generative AI can use its datasets to identify career pathways that match your skills and interests. This can be useful for providing inspiration for where to start with your career research. For the best results, structure your prompts using the RTF model (developed by Durham University):

  • Role – Who should the AI act as? Be specific about the perspective you want the AI to take.
    • Example: Instead of a general request, try “You are a UK-based labour market expert.”
  • Task – What exactly do you want it to do? Clearly define what you want and include relevant context about your background.
    • Example: Instead of a vague request, try “Based on the list of my interests, skills and experience below, identify 5 entry-level roles or sectors for me to research further. I am currently studying BA History and enjoy research but do not want to work in academia. My skills include teamwork, communication, positivity and creativity, and I have experience as a Retail Assistant, Student Ambassador and hockey team member.
  • Format – How should the output be delivered? Guide how you want the response structured.
    • Example: Instead of leaving this open, try “Present these options in a bullet-point list including a brief description of each role and its skills/experience requirements.”

When prompting AI, remember different AI tools have different data privacy policies. Make sure you are anonymising your data when using AI to avoid it being used elsewhere.

Proofread

Now you have some ideas of where to start, it is important to research and reflect on these options, and others, further. This is because:

  • AI might not have the most up-to-date or correct information about the career pathway.
  • AI might not provide enough detail; be curious and consider what else you would like to know.
  • AI can’t possibly include all options - you can use your skills and experience in a range of transferable ways, don’t be limited by what it tells you!
  • There may be other factors that are important to you in your next steps that influence your career exploration. If useful, you can discuss this in more detail in a Careers Guidance Appointment, which is bookable via CareerConnect.

We have a range of ways that you can research roles and/or sectors further: I'm ready to explore my ideas further (The University of Manchester)

Considerations when using AI:

When considering using AI to support your career-planning, it’s important to understand further considerations. For example, data privacy - submitting confidential or sensitive information to an AI system may result in that information being unintentionally revealed to other users. For more information including examples of how you might manage challenges when using AI in your career thinking and the university’s wider policy, go to Considerations when using AI.

Further Resources