Malhar Shah, a 34-year-old IT professional from New Jersey, started looking for a job earlier this year. He knew right away that his best chance of getting an interview was to optimize his resume as much as possible, which he did with the help of ChatGPT and Gemini.
Malhar Shah, a 34-year-old IT professional from New Jersey, started looking for a job earlier this year. He knew right away that his best chance of getting an interview was to optimize his resume as much as possible, which he did with the help of ChatGPT and Gemini.
Malhar used ChatGPT and Gemini to rate his resume on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the worst and 10 being the best). Using AI, the IT guy rated his resume, both overall and by section. He also asked the AI to suggest improvements.
"I wanted to find ways to cut through the noise of candidate tracking systems—the automated filters that some companies use to screen and rank resumes. I was confident that I could make a strong impression when I got to the interview stage," Malhar told Business Insider.
Aitivets applied to about 120 companies and had up to 15 interviews. His initial resume scored around 7 or 7.5 points, while the version that eventually landed him the job scored 9.5 points from ChatGPT and 9 from Gemini.
“I believe that incorporating resume feedback from AI tools played a key role in my success in landing a six-figure CTO position,” says Malhar.
He didn't spend a lot of time tailoring his resume to each individual job opening, but created separate versions for the four main types of roles he was targeting: technical lead, staff engineer, engineering manager, and principal engineer.
“I asked AI tools to help me craft a resume for each of these roles and to rate my resumes as I went along. My target score was 8 or higher,” says the IT professional.
ChatGPT and Gemini sometimes scored resumes with significant differences. For example, ChatGPT might rate one version of a resume a 9, while Gemini gave it a 7—and it wasn’t always clear why. The feedback could also be conflicting. If Malhar asked ChatGPT to suggest improvements to a resume he had rated a 7, applying those changes might raise the score to a 9. But if he uploaded that revised resume to a new ChatGPT chat, he would sometimes get a different score.
“Over time, it became clear that these tools did not follow a consistent scoring system. Their scores were based on the context of each conversation I had with the AI tool: what version of the resume I shared, how I phrased my questions, and what criteria were applied,” explains Malhar.
Aitivets didn't aim for a 10. Every time he felt he already had a solid resume, he started applying for several jobs. If he didn't get a response from employers, he would turn to artificial intelligence tools to make additional adjustments.
“The most helpful part of using AI tools to improve my resume was getting clear, real-time feedback and actionable advice on how to make it better. AI helped me rephrase phrases to sound clearer and more effective, include the right keywords to get through candidate tracking systems, and organize my experience in a way that made my accomplishments stand out. It also allowed me to quickly go through multiple drafts of my resume, adjusting the language and layout until my resume was polished. If I had to choose an AI tool that I found most helpful, I would choose Gemini ,” Malhar concluded.
