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Fast Company
10-07-2025
- Business
- Fast Company
AI replaced me, so I decided to ride the AI wave
In 2022, I was hired to build out AI operations at a health-tech startup—at the time, we were pioneering the use of AI in healthcare, which required abundant human oversight. Over time, new GenAI models were launching at an unprecedented pace and new iterations like GPT-4 could solve a case in 30 seconds, compared to the four months it took my team. It quickly became clear to both my employer and me that my skills were no longer needed, and there were no clear opportunities to chart a new path at my job with my current skill set. I was left with no choice but to move on. As I reignited my job search, I was keen on finding 'AI-proof' positions—roles that wouldn't be affected by the AI revolution—but I persisted with a traditional search. It wasn't until about five months later that I realized this approach wasn't working. Frustrated, I paused to rethink my entire strategy and questioned whether I was looking at the problem from the right angle. Then came my light-bulb moment: instead of thinking about what AI was going to do to me, I shifted my mindset to explore what it could do for me. Secret weapon AI quickly became my secret weapon. I created a custom ' CareerBuddy GPT' in ChatGPT to help me with rote work like drafting a cover letter and updating my résumé to tailor to each individual job posting. Using AI cut down the time I was spending on my job search by 70 to 80% but it also saved me the headache. Anyone who is grinding on the job search knows the process can be fatiguing. I found the best use for AI, however, was using AI as a strategic partner, assessing my candidacy for roles, generating leads for my job search, and advising on the best ways to position my experience. By simply uploading my résumé or summarizing my objectives, CareerBuddy GPT identified people to reach out to, organizations to vet, and even open job listings that I may have missed. Untapped resource This resulted in landing a role at a fresh new startup, which is ironically all about perfecting the human-AI relationship. Ultimately, using AI in my job search helped me realize that collaborating with AI was my greatest untapped resource. I am currently leveraging a lot of what I self-learned to improve our organization's internal AI program—identifying where AI can fill the gaps and free up my teams for more creative opportunities. There are some revolutions so momentous that we cannot avoid them even if we want to. Unfortunately, I couldn't sustain my health-tech position as that revolution unfolded. But this situation clarified an important learning for me: the AI wave is here and there are two options: you can get pulled in by the undertow or grab a surfboard and ride the wave. Maximizing productivity AI can become your job hunter, career coach, your personal shopper, or your receptionist. It can help you save time, explore different paths, find space for creativity, and develop your own set of skills. My personal belief—albeit cautiously optimistic—is that human value is not going to vanish even if AI can replicate some of our capabilities. But what AI can do is help maximize human productivity and help humans unlock value they don't even know they have. To be clear, sharing my experience is not meant to invalidate peoples' stories or deny the truth. As headlines fuel fears around AI replacing human workers, layoffs are happening more frequently. Microsoft just laid off 3% of its workforce (7K+ employees) in order to funnel more cash into its lofty AI goals, but the two shouldn't be mutually exclusive, and in fact, it's better they're not. We know AI is most helpful in helping complete rote work. At the same time leadership is freeing up, say, software engineers to do coding, there's demand for AI prompt engineering support where human expertise is critically needed. Companies can leverage the power of the AI-human relationship to 100x their productivity, rather than have AI replace the labor they're letting go. This is not just one way everyone—from the employee to the board member—can rethink the way we are approaching AI. But we can all start by dispelling our fears that AI will replace us and instead grab that surfboard and make AI our secret weapon and our key to unlocking human potential.
Business Insider
21-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
I made an AI tool to run my job search, and it helped me get my dream role
Mark Quinn is the senior director of AI operations for Pearl, an AI search platform for professional services. Before getting the job, the longtime tech exec, who'd held leadership roles at Waymo, Apple, and LinkedIn, created an artificial intelligence tool, now called CareerBuddy GPT, to help level up his search. The tool determined whether he was a good fit, updated his résumé to highlight relevant experience, wrote cover letters, and identified people to contact about the position. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity. When I turned to AI to help with my job search, I was five months into it and wasn't getting the traction that I thought I would get. I felt like I had done everything, which obviously was not the case. When you're in a moment like this, you can feel stuck and be blinded to the possibilities. So, I went to AI and said, "I don't know what to do. I'm an exec in tech, and here's my résumé. I'm applying to these jobs, and I'm not having a lot of success." It was able to walk me back from the edge and say, essentially, "Look, you're at this level, and your average job search time should be ABC, and you're only this far in. So, first, calm down." It sounds silly, but it was really helpful to hear. Then it went on to say, "Now, let's talk about some things. I'm hearing what you did do, but here are some things that maybe you could do that I'm not hearing." A research partner Some of its suggestions were unexpected. One was to make a cake for someone, because it was a company that appreciates bold moves. I don't know if that was really good advice, but it did come up with that. It would also suggest how to tailor a message to a particular person. Or, for example, to use email, not LinkedIn, because they're not active on LinkedIn — those sorts of tidbits. One of the taglines I've developed from my experience is that one way to think about AI is not as a tool but as the world's best expert in whatever you need help with. The more you leverage AI through that lens, the more you get out of it. I used it to create what's called a panel of experts. Now, you've got AI playing multiple roles at once. It can slice and dice and give you different views and a synthesized opinion. Another example is downloading the profile information for the person you're going to interview with. You can have AI assume the role of the interviewer and do a mock interview, and you can do it live with your voice, and then get feedback on how you performed. It also started calling out things like applying to incremental CEO roles. It recommended doing more cold outreach, which I hadn't leaned into too much. It helped me figure out a plan that worked for me and language that worked for me to do that, and it gave me concrete steps. 'You're missing it' The way that I ended up at Pearl is interesting. When I saw the job description, I passed it up because, on paper, it's different from anything I'd done before. Now it's laughable, because I'm in it, and everybody's connecting my passion and my past with the role. Maybe a week later, I saw the posting again and thought, "Why am I saying 'no' to myself? Let me just drop this thing into CareerBuddy GPT and see what it says. I didn't think that I was qualified, but I said, "Give me your objective assessment." It came back and said, "Hey, you're missing it. Your résumé doesn't speak to it, but here's how your experience aligns." It encouraged me to apply. So, then I did the network outreach, and I had a connection, which helped open the door. One thing led to the next. But what got me to apply was leveraging AI to the extent of not only answering, but also truly advising. I say trust, but verify. It told me to do something different than what I thought was right. I can represent me, what I am, and what I'm not. AI can look between the lines and challenge and question. When I was interviewing with our CEO, he asked me, toward the end of the interview, what my dream job was. I got about 15 to 20 seconds into stumbling around, and I said, "Look, I'm just going to be honest with you. I don't know how to spin this to make it sound good, because the honest answer is this: This job is my dream job." No more throwing darts After I started using AI, my job search still took a bit of time — maybe another five months or so. But I went from feeling like I was just throwing darts to where it felt much more targeted and precise. And, I'd gone from essentially getting no response to finding the right opportunities, having conversations, and it was a matter of finding the right fit. That can take time. We're in a moment when people and companies are about to be left behind, and I want to help that not be the case. The opportunity to go to a company that really gets it, is going after this full force, and wants to rewire with AI — that sounds like the hardest role of my career, but also the most fun and the most relevant thing I could be doing for this moment. So, not only did I stumble into the job, but I stumbled into my dream job.
