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. Before starting to use AI in career-thinking further, we would also recommend looking at our Using AI page for a broader understanding of its use.

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 Using AI 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 to provide some 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?
    • Example: You are a UK-based labour market expert.
  • Task – What exactly do you want it to do?
    • Example: 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 am enjoying the research aspect of the degree but I don't think I want to work in academia.
      • My skills include teamwork, communication, positivity and creativity.
      • I have had a part-time job as a Retail Assistant, work as a Student Ambassador and am on the hockey team.
  • Format – How should the output be delivered?
    • Example: Present these options in a bullet point list including a brief description of each role and it's 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 can be useful for generating ideas and getting started but using AI can also frequently present challenges for the user. For example, AI might:

  • Produce information that is outdated or false (sometimes referred to as ‘AI hallucinations’)
  • Create content that is generic, for example if you use it to create an application, it might use the language of the job description, but not include specific evidence of your skills
  • Encourage over-reliance on AI without personal reflection (sometimes referred to as ‘cognitive off-loading')

When using AI, consider how you take into account the challenges of AI use. We have outlined an example of how you might navigate a particular challenge below.

It’s also worth thinking about the broader implications of using AI, like data privacy and its environmental impact. For example, submitting confidential or sensitive information to an AI system may result in that information being unintentionally revealed to other users. There is more information about best practice and critical AI use, including considering data privacy, the environmental impact and the University’s policy, here: Generative AI) .

The university is currently in the process of rolling out access to Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses to staff and students. More information will be shared by the university soon.

Example of managing an AI challenge:

  • Action: Researching what career pathways might match your interests and skills.
  • Using AI to: Generate starting points and inspiration for further research.
  • Risk that AI will: Offer general suggestions that aren’t personalised to you and skip important personal reflection on your skills, interests and priorities.
  • How to manage this challenge: Follow the 3 P’s approach. Reflection is an important part of career exploration, allowing you to identify your priorities, skills and interests. Ensure you start at this point, before using AI, as this will allow you to prompt more effectively. Our 'I'm just starting to think about my career’ webpage has some good starting points: I’m just starting to think about my career (The University of Manchester).

Further Resources