Should you use AI for your teaching job application?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used by teachers for lesson planning and administrative tasks.
As AI technologies play a bigger role in education across the world, it's important we understand its potential impacts.
For example, while AI has the potential to reduce teacher workload – which could have huge benefits for teacher wellbeing – it can produce content that's low-quality, inaccurate, biased, and even unsafe.
But what about when you’re applying for a teaching job? Should you use AI for job applications?
How AI might be used in the application process
When you’re applying for a job, you might use a generative AI tool or chatbot such as ChatGPT or Google Gemini to:
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Research a school or school group
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Compare schools or school groups
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Do research around which country is best to work in
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Understand requirements for working in different countries
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Collate notes or summarise your work experience
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Outline the structure or content of your personal statement
However, before you decide to use AI for any of these, you should understand the pros and cons of using AI for your job application.
Potential benefits of using AI for job applications
Saving time
The most obvious and standout potential benefit is that effective use of AI tools can save you time in the job application process.
Job hunting and applying for jobs is often an intense and time-consuming process. You might use AI to save time, for example by:
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Researching a school, school group or country
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Breaking down job adverts and person specifications
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Picking out your most relevant experience
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Identifying your stand-out training and CPD
AI tools can provide a starting point for you to write your application with less time needed for preparation and research.
Checking spelling, grammar and punctuation
AI tools can help you polish a job application by providing feedback. They can also check details such as spelling, grammar and punctuation.
Some AI tools have been created specifically for this purpose, such as Grammarly.
Once you’ve written your personal statement and application, these tools can help you ensure it reads as polished and grammatically correct.
Potential for passing AI filters
Recruiters are increasingly using applicant tracking systems (ATS) to screen job applications prior to interview shortlisting.
These systems streamline the hiring process for recruiters by scanning and ranking every application submitted. This saves masses of time for recruiters – but means your application could be rejected without being properly read by a member of school staff.
While no tool is perfect, some find that using an AI tool helps create an application that's optimised for an ATS.
Easier interview prep
Once you’ve been invited to interview, it’s time for interview prep. This usually means researching the school, school group, curriculum, country and area – then finding common questions you might be asked and practicing your answers.
AI tools can help with all of these by compiling information (though always double-check this is correct and up to date), giving you practice questions and feeding back on your answers.
All of this helps you prepare for an interview in less time – and in a more interactive way, as tools such as chatbots that listen and respond can somewhat replicate the human interaction you will have at your interview.
Potential risks of using AI for job applications
While there are benefits to using AI for your job application, you should also be aware of and consider the potential risks.
Reduced application quality
Relying too much on AI for your job application can mean that in the end, your application is of lower quality.
For example, generative AI tools often ‘hallucinate’ (make up) information – so if you ask an AI chatbot to research a school for you, the information it responds with could be partly or entirely false.
This has an obvious impact on your application, as the recruiting panel will immediately notice your application contains incorrect information and likely rule you out.
Similarly, for some school leaders and recruiters, being able to identify that you have used AI could be enough to get your application in the ‘no’ pile.
As such, using AI to help you write an application always comes with a level of risk.
A lack of personalisation
It might seem like a good idea to ask AI to generate your personal statement. However, your application is meant to show the school who you are; it should be personalised to you.
A job application isn’t just a showcase of your experience and skills, but also your communication style, life experience, perspective and opinion on education. All of this comes through in your application from writing it yourself.
So while it might save some time to ask a chatbot to generate an initial outline or summarise notes, your finished personal statement should have a personalised, human feel, and as such should always be written by you.
The impact of overreliance
Overreliance on AI comes with its own issues – alarmingly, it can impact your own skills and cognitive ability over time.
A study from MIT found that over time, using AI can reduce our skills in critical thinking and problem solving. Researchers said the study indicates that using AI tools can lead to a potential “decrease in learning skills".
Writing a job application is a skill – and one we don’t practice that often, with most people only writing applications every few years.
It’s important to hone your writing skills and your ability to write a job application, which you can’t do if you rely on an AI tool to write your application for you.
Similarly, writing an application yourself likely stands you in better stead if you’re invited to interview.
If you’ve recently written a summary of your experience, skills, educational philosophy and why you want to work at the school, then all of this is likely to be fresher in your mind when you’re answering interview questions – leading to a better interview performance.
If you didn’t write your statement, however, you lose this advantage. MIT's study findings reinforce this idea, as the study found those who wrote an essay without AI were later more able to quote from their essay than those who did use AI.
Concerns around the wider impact of AI
There are also some concerns around the impact of AI on a wider scale.
A common ethical concern around AI use is its impact on the environment – the UN environment programme summarises:
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The microchips that power AI need rare earth elements that are often mined in destructive ways
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Data centres produce waste, often containing hazardous substances
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Data centres need a lot of energy, which means burning fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases
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A request made through ChatGPT consumes 10x more electricity than a Google search
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It's estimated that the world’s AI-related infrastructure might soon consume 6x more water than Denmark, a country of 6 million people
AI usage also creates concerns around data protection and data privacy. As well as any information you enter into the AI tool, generative AI tools might collect and store data including your or your school’s:
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Location
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IP address
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System and browser information
So, should you use AI for job applications?
If you want to use an AI tool, think of it as your assistant – it's there to help you and take some of the load off, but it can’t do the job for you.
Always fact-check any information provided to you by an AI tool or chatbot. And remember that using AI always comes with a level of risk – for example, hallucination and false information that can be detrimental to your job application.
Ultimately, while using AI responsibly can provide you with a starting point and help you with prep, it shouldn’t replace your own research, writing and reviewing.
Download the teacher’s application guide
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