TULSA, Okla. — Tulsa Community College launched a new technology program using artificial intelligence to help students prepare for their transition into the workforce.
It is partnering with a local tech company, WriteSea, and using their program, Job Search Genius. CEO and Co-Founder Brandon Mitchell said they wanted to provide career support in a more cutting-edge way.
"It's very hard to find a job in today’s competitive job market, and a lot of the tooling and technology hasn’t really caught up," said Mitchell. "You have a lot of folks that are still going into Microsoft Word and creating resumes and covers, etc. So, we thought how can we make the process a little more faster, efficient?"
All a student needs to do is upload their resume into Job Search Genius, and the AI enhances and expands from there. The AI can generate cover letters based on the resume and tailor them to a specific job, create mock interview questions, and coach students through salary or benefit negotiations, among other things.
TCC will be WriteSea's flagship college, and they are in talks with over a dozen other colleges across the country to implement this advanced technology on their campuses as well.
"We'll use that as a tool to help staff, to help students, and so far, we're really excited," said Career Services Director Mark Hays. "It looks like something that's really gonna take off and really gonna help our students, and help reduce the workload of our staff so that they're not spending all their time just going over resumes and cover letters and can devote more time to help students do other things."
Current and former students will have access to this career support tool. Melissa Douglas, who graduated in May, said she and her peers could benefit from something like this as an added layer of guidance through the process.
"I see over social media a lot that people who graduate have trouble filling out a job application," said Douglas. "I feel like this is something that will make them more comfortable filling out their resume, adding to it and taking stuff off."
With so much speculation surrounding AI in schools and the legitimate efficiency it would have, Mitchell said they created this technology with those issues in mind.
When Chat GPT launched in Nov. 2022, Mitchell said he knew many questioned if it was just going to allow or encourage cheating in education. But, when there was a look at the practical use of the technology, he said he noticed a shift.
"For a student I think, the way that we at least built Job Search Genius is that it's here to provide insight and to help and to provide advice," said Mitchell. "We don't do something called hallucinate, which is basically if you put in a prompt it basically generates things that you never did."
He said a lot of WriteSea's research shows that many job seekers don't know what they excel at, so this AI will act as a coach and guide them to well-matched opportunities.
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