Alex Shapiro of Jasper.ai (L), Chris Foltz of IBM, Lindsey Dugan of Nvidia, and Flavien Coronini of Hugging Face share tips on how to get a job in AI.
Courtesy of Jasper.ai, IBM, Nvidia, and Hugging Face
Companies are hiring for AI talent as they seek to cash in on the generative AI hype. Insider spoke to four hiring leaders to get their advice on how to land a job in AI. Applicants don’t need a technical degree and should be careful when using AI to apply for jobs.
Artificial intelligence may have the potential to wipe out your job — but you might be safe if you’re working behind the technology.
Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT last November, generative AI technology has taken the corporate world by storm. Venture capital firms have been pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into AI startups, and companies across industries are looking to beef up their own AI strategies in an effort to cash in on the hype.
That means more jobs in the generative AI space, with major companies like Amazon, Meta, and Netflix hiring employees to work on their AI initiatives and listing six-figure salaries.
But it’s not just tech companies seeking AI talent. Employers across a range of sectors — from law to education to healthcare — have been looking to hire workers familiar with tools like ChatGPT, and some were hiring prompt engineers to fine-tune their own AI chatbots.
So how do you start a career in AI and land a job?
To understand what recruiters look for in applicants, Insider spoke to four hiring leaders at IBM, Nvidia, Hugging Face, and Jasper for their advice on how to land an AI-related job at their respective companies.
Here are 4 tips from hiring leaders on how to increase your chances of landing a job in AI.
1) Include your AI skills and past projects on your résumé
Before submitting your job application, make sure your résumé includes the skills and projects needed for the role.
When reviewing applications, Nvidia, the chip giant hiring for technical roles related to machine learning and AI, looks for “critical skills” related to math proficiency, programming, deep learning, algorithms, data handling, and AI infrastructure like utilizing graphic processing units, Lindsey Duran, the vice president of global recruiting at Nvidia, told Insider.
IBM, the tech giant currently hiring AI engineers, AI application consultants, and AI research scientists, also requires applicants to have strong math and coding skills, as well as an understanding of APIs and other technical concepts, Chris Foltz, the chief talent officer at IBM, told Insider.
Demonstrating your technical expertise by showing examples of previous work is a plus, Flavien Coronini, the talent acquisition lead at Hugging Face, an AI company behind tools like text-to-image generator Stable Diffusion, told Insider.
Since Hugging Face is an open source company, Coronini said he looks for GitHub links to their projects when reviewing resumes. By reviewing their projects, Coronini said he can gauge how much impact the applicant could bring to Hugging Face — whether that’s the ability to solve a problem or make a program run faster — and can identify if their vision aligns with the company’s mission.
When making hiring decisions for less-technical roles like sales and product management, the three recruiters said they look for “soft skills” like strong communication, the ability to collaborate, and adaptability to change.
2) Demonstrate your interest in AI during the interview — and be able to prove it
If you’re lucky enough to land an interview, be prepared to talk about your interest in generative AI.
Alex Shapiro, the chief people officer at Jasper AI, an AI marketing and writing software that Shapiro said recently completed its “key hiring” over the last three years, said she expects job candidates to show that they’ve “done their homework” and “understand the technology.” For instance, she said that candidates for engineering roles should be able to differentiate between a “model layer” and an “app layer.”
For technical and non-technical roles alike, interviewees can stand out if they can articulate how they’ve been playing around with generative AI tools like ChatGPT. This especially applies to those interviewing for client-facing roles like customer service as it shows “whether or not people have dived into this industry,” she said.
“For a new field, I think what helps us to differentiate people is just how much curiosity they’ve had about the space and what work they’ve done to learn more about it,” Shapiro told Insider.
Foltz, the chief talent officer at IBM, would agree with Shapiro. He said that applicants who read AI research papers, follow AI forums, and explore AI-related online courses stand out from the pool because it shows they are genuinely curious about AI and have a “desire to continuously learn.”
3) Don’t expect your ChatGPT skills to get you hired
Using AI tools like ChatGPT can be useful when writing your résumé and cover letters. But make sure you double-check the AI-generated documents for accuracy before submitting them.
Shapiro acknowledged that using ChatGPT can be “great” in helping applicants “brainstorm verbs” and “bring a level of polish” to their applications. However, she urges applicants to make sure their AI-generated documents accurately reflect their qualities.
She said there’s been times when Jasper recruiters interviewed candidates and discovered that there’s a skill in their resume they didn’t intend to be there, or a characterization they’re not familiar with, which she said could lead to problems down the line.
In fact, ChatGPT can actually hurt an applicant’s chances of moving forward in the hiring process if the chatbot is used irresponsibly.
Duran from Nvidia said there’s been instances where recruiters at her company caught candidates using ChatGPT during interviews to answer questions, which she said is prohibited. Coronini from Hugging Face has even seen cover letters that include prompts like “Insert a cover letter in order to explain why my background is a good fit for this role” used to generate them — which he calls a” “really bad” practice.
“For me, this is a showstopper, because it doesn’t really show your motivation to join,” he said.
4) Don’t be afraid to apply — even if you don’t meet all of the job requirements
Many AI job listings may require applicants to have college or higher level degrees in computer science and engineering. But all the recruiters who spoke to Insider said they wouldn’t rule out applicants who have less conventional backgrounds.
Foltz said that IBM focuses on “prioritizing skills and experiences” over “traditional degrees” if they can demonstrate a “foundational understanding of AI, whether that’s knowing how to apply AI to their workflows, or taking “industry-recognized” online courses on AI and machine learning.
Beyond education and AI experience, Duran said applicants from non-traditional backgrounds can shine if they can “clearly communicate what makes them stand out” by emphasizing their career milestones, leadership capabilities, and the impact of their previous projects.
In some cases, Shapiro said workers with less conventional backgrounds may have more to offer than those with technical degrees. She said that Jasper hired employees who completed skills-based boot camps and believes that applicants who are career changers can be more equipped for particular roles than those with technical degrees — if they take the initiative to keep up with everything that’s happening in generative AI.
“It’s really valuable to have people come in from different perspectives,” she said.