WSJ Your Money Briefing - Not Sure What’s Next For Your Career? Ask AI

Episode Date: May 5, 2025

AI tools from companies like Salesforce, LinkedIn and Google claim to help frustrated job hunters with career pivots. Wall Street Journal reporter Lindsay Ellis joins host Julia Carpenter to talk about what these tools get right— and what still needs tweaking.  Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's your money briefing for Monday, May 5th. I'm Julia Carpenter for the Wall Street Journal. Back in the day, frustrated job seekers might have turned to a mentor or a career coach when they needed some direction. But these days, workers are tapping a few buttons to see what career advice artificial intelligence can offer up. AI could potentially help job seekers because they might need assistance in how to pitch themselves for a job to be able to say, help me highlight the overlapping skills here and

show a hiring manager that even if I haven't had this exact job title, that my relevant experience can be helpful. Companies like Salesforce, LinkedIn, and Google are already experimenting with these tools. We'll talk with Wall Street Journal reporter, Lindsay Ellis, about what they get right and what still needs a human touch. That's after the break. Talking about guns with others the break. Hey, we're so excited for tonight. Before we come over though, may I ask if there are any unlocked guns in your home? Our guns are stored securely, locked in a safe that the kids can't access.

Awesome. Learn how to have the conversation at AgreeToAgree.org, brought to you by the Ad Council. So many workers are worried about AI taking their jobs, but companies are experimenting with AI tools that could now help you get a new job. WSJ reporter Lindsay Ellis joins me. Lindsay, some of these products have some magical sounding names. Salesforce calls their tool Career Connect. LinkedIn has the next role Explorer.

But you reported the story. What do these things actually do? These tools use AI and take your resume or LinkedIn profile and basically parse through your work history, inferring what skills you have and what kind of jobs you've done, and then recommend potential options for next career steps. So employees have used tools like these when they're looking for new jobs, trying to figure out what could

their next opportunity look like, either in their current workplace or sometimes somewhere else. So there's different companies making these tools. Can you walk me through what playing with the Salesforce tool looks like? Their tool is for internal employees and basically staff would upload a link to a LinkedIn profile or their resume and it would analyze what skills they have and offer up potential pathways forward. With the Google one, it was like a word cloud. For Google's, you might say your profession and the type of workplace that you've been in and then you select some tasks that you've done and relevant skills, and then it kind

of brings up this word cloud of potential career opportunities generated by AI and also seen in kind of databases of options. And you talked to some job hunters who've actually put these tools to the test. How did they find the experience? So I spoke with one Salesforce employee who had used Career Connect. And she basically told me that it laid out different pathways forward and in several cases they were options that she wouldn't have otherwise considered. One was in AI, one was in sales, she had never worked in sales but it identified some overlapping skills that she had and she wound up applying for the job and got it. And you also spoke to a recruiter who even said she recommends using AI to help in the job search.

What do professionals like her have to say about this? She helped me realize that free tools that people have access to, like chat GPT, could be a really good first step for many job seekers. She also noted that it's important when you approach those types of tools to be really specific. So for example, if you were using chat GPT, she said explain what you've done and what broadly you're looking for and then ask for a list of businesses, family foundations, nonprofits that might be hiring for your experience or skills. And that might point you in a new direction

of an employer that you didn't know about or wouldn't have otherwise considered that could well be hiring. So I played around with the Google tool. It's called Career Dreamer. And here are some of the roles it dreamed up for me. Talent director, professor, and even DJ. director, professor, and even DJ. In your reporting, how diverse are some of these results?

I put in, if I were an accountant and I worked at a big four company, what would you recommend? And it issued recommendations like management consultant or compliance officer, also areas like tax preparer. So it can be a pretty broad range. And what do they get right, and where have you seen them kind of get things wrong? A lot of the AI results show options that might require either a bunch of education,

a terminal degree, maybe some certifications to land. In some of these tools, it actually recommends certificate programs or online trainings that could get someone skilled up for this job. But if you need a doctorate, you can't necessarily sign up for a free version of that online. But it does funnel options or job titles that users might not know exist, but they would be pretty squarely qualified for. For a middle school teacher, for example, saying, have you considered working as a corporate trainer? Many of the same skills and engaging an audience, planning

lessons, but obviously a very different audience. I can so see the appeal in this because it's, as you write in your story, a tricky job market right now. A lot of people are looking at career pivots or development programs are upscaling because they've either been laid off or they're afraid they're gonna be laid off. What do companies want right now? And how can AI help job hunters with that? Yeah, I mean, you're spot on.

There are a lot of people who are looking to make a move either because they have to or because they think that they're going to have to soon. And what's extra challenging is that companies are hiring more conservatively and in some cases looking for what's been called to me as a turnkey candidate, someone who's done this exact job before at a different employer with the exact experience that they need. In that case, I've heard that AI could potentially help job seekers because they might need assistance

in how to pitch themselves for a job to be able to say, help me highlight the overlapping skills here and show a hiring manager that even if I haven't had this exact job title, that my relevant experience can be helpful. That's WSJ reporter Lindsay Ellis. And that's it for your money briefing. This episode was produced by Zoe Kolkin

with supervising producer Melanie Roy. I'm Julia Carpenter for The Wall Street Journal. Thanks for listening.