How to Balance AI and a Human Touch in Resume Automation

Your professional resume is a personal reflection of you. (Read that again.)

Your resume showcases your unique skills, qualifications, achievements, and the impact you've made—all of which are yours and yours alone.

But the process of cataloging all of your relevant roles and accomplishments, writing professional summaries, personalizing your resume for each role, and navigating the many moving parts of actually submitting that perfect resume during your job search requires a considerable investment of time.

So, how can you streamline parts of this process—specifically resume creation? What role can the latest advancements in AI play in helping you optimize your resume while still preserving that essential personal touch that makes your resume so uniquely...you?

Using AI in the resume writing process

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an invaluable tool for resume writing—whether as a standalone tool or a resume builder.

AI delivers efficiency, allowing you to craft compelling resumes faster than ever before. For the sake of simplicity and specificity, let's focus on AI resume builders.

An AI-powered resume builder can do things like:

• Generate impactful resume summaries 
• Craft bullet point achievements
• Provide real-time feedback on your existing resume content
• Highlight relevant keywords and phrases from job descriptions
• Align your resume with job descriptions
• Create cover letters in less time with less effort

Merging resume automation and personalization

While next-gen AI resume strategies facilitate and streamline the process of resume creation with automation, the real magic happens when you personalize or tailor your resume to make it stand out. This is where you merge the efficiency of AI with your unique career journey.

Think of AI as your companion, not a complete substitute for the human touch, creativity, and individuality that goes into sharing your professional story.

AI tools can lay the groundwork, but infusing the framework with your personal achievements and distinct human voice is what makes it uniquely yours.

For instance, AI might suggest resume bullet points like:

"Successfully lead a team in the delivery of a software development project, completing it on time and under budget—increasing client satisfaction."

But here's where you make it your own with specific metrics and details from the job description of the role you're applying to—making it far more impactful.

Successfully led a cross-functional team of 12 in delivering a complex, $1.5 million software development project, finishing 10% under budget and 2 weeks ahead of schedule, boosting client satisfaction by 25%.

You see, personalization is more than just listing your skills and achievements however you want; it's about aligning what you offer with the specific needs of hiring managers and recruiters—customizing your experiences and talents to fit the unique requirements of each job you apply for.

By blending AI's efficiency with your personal insights, you can create a resume that's not only professionally polished and customized but also authentically you—quickly.

Always remember, the aim of an AI resume builder is to enhance your resume, not replace your personal touch or details. But with the right balance, AI can transform resume-building into a more efficient, personalized, and ultimately successful experience.

Creating a base resume

Before you personalize your resume, starting with a solid base is essential.

A base resume stores all of your achievements, accomplishments, and wins so you can choose the best ones for every role to frame your experience in the most relevant way.

An intuitive AI Resume Builder (like Teal) has sections for cataloging your work history, education, skills, and more so you don't miss any important details. You can also automate some of this process using AI to create a professional summary and resume bullets.

And remember, this is the base from where you'll add much deeper personalization. It doesn't need to be perfect—just comprehensive and inclusive. Each job, project, and role you've held has its unique stories and successes. Add them all.

The foundation of personalization: Job descriptions and relevance

The foundation of personalization doesn't begin with you (although that probably sounds a bit counterintuitive). Once you've created a base resume, personalization actually starts with the job description of the role you're applying to. Here, mindset plays a pivotal role.

Adopting the right mindset means viewing the job application process not just as a game of matching skills and experiences but as an opportunity to connect your career story with the specific needs of a potential employer or hiring manager. It's about understanding that the role of your resume is to showcase the top 10% of your experience that's 100% relevant to the role you're applying to. Doing so requires a blend of strategic thinking, self-awareness—and, yes, even automation.

First, read the job description. Does this role sound like something you're qualified to do that you're also actually interested in? Then, look for keywords.

Job description keywords tell you exactly what a company is looking for. They're typically hard skills, soft skills, and other important language that highlight specific qualifications, experiences, and competencies desired in a candidate that should then be reflected in your resume (as long as you actually have them).

Teal's Job Description Keyword Finder quickly scans job descriptions for keywords and uncovers the language that matters most, helping you stand out to potential employers.

But it's important to note it's not just about plugging in words; it's about understanding how those skills and experiences align with what the job requires.

From job descriptions to customization

After laying a solid foundation with your base resume, the next step is to customize that base for each specific job application using the details and keywords from the job description—transforming a generic resume into one that resonates with potential employers.

Professional summary personalization

Your professional summary is your elevator pitch to potential employers. It's where you showcase your career in aggregate to tell your professional story and align it with the needs of the company you're applying to.

While AI tools offer tremendous support for your base summary (Hello! No more blank page!), this section is also about your voice and vision. Use resume keywords and insights from the job description to ensure alignment, but let your unique professional story lead the way.

Let's break it down in an example:

Base resume professional summary

Marketing Manager with 10+ years of experience developing and executing marketing strategies in the tech industry. Proven track record of increasing website traffic by 40%, website conversion by 4%, and customer engagement by 25%. Skilled in team leadership, project management, and creative campaign development.

Job description keywords

• Digital marketing
• SEO optimization
• Conversion rate optimizition (CRO)
• Cross-functional collaboration
• Data-driven decision making
• Strong analytical skills
• Tech
• Sales enablement

Customized professional summary

Seasoned Digital Marketing Manager with a decade of experience in the tech sector. Demonstrated expertise in SEO optimization and CRO, leading to a 4% boost in overall website conversion. My cross-functional collaboration skills, fostering teamwork between marketing, sales, and technical departments, were pivotal in driving data-driven decision-making in sales enablement. This approach, combined with strong analytical skills, has contributed to a 25% increase in customer engagement, underscoring a commitment to strategic, results-oriented marketing practices.

In this example, the customized professional summary integrates the keywords from the job description, ensuring it resonates with the specific role's requirements. It maintains the base resume's core accomplishments and messaging but aligns them more closely with the targeted position by including both hard skills like SEO Optimization and soft skills such as cross-functional collaboration. 

Fine-tuned work experience achievements

Your "Work Experience" is the most important section of your resume. It's how you express all that you've achieved in a way that's conscience, clear, and relevant to the role you're applying to.

When it comes to work experience achievements, one thing is absolutely certain—they should focus on your impact rather than the responsibilities of your job title.

If you used AI to create your base resume metrics, they might be missing those specific metric-driven impact statements because, let's face it, AI wasn't there when you did those things.

The key to personalization in your work experience section is to add specificity and context to the achievements generated by AI—highlighting your unique impact and value.

Consider this AI-generated bullet point example: 

"Increased sales by 15% through innovative marketing strategies." 

While this is a good start, it lacks the personal touch that distinguishes you from anybody else.

Job description keywords:

• Digital marketing
• Social media analytics
• Revenue
• Targeted marking campaign

A more personalized resume bullet point: 

"Spearheaded a targeted digital marketing campaign that boosted sales by 15% in Q3, leveraging social media analytics and customer feedback to refine our approach, resulting in a record-breaking revenue quarter."

This personalized approach tells a story, showing how you applied specific skills and knowledge to achieve measurable results. It demonstrates your ability to think critically, adapt to changing circumstances, and drive success.

Personalizing your AI resume achievements with Teal

The Teal AI-powered Resume Builder offers tools that can help you automate editing or creating new resume bullets while personalizing them.

With Teal, you can choose from the best AI achievements for your story, improve your current resume bullets, suggest specific keywords for AI to include, and customize AI prompts to get the personalized output you need to tell your story in a way that represents you.

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With Teal, your AI-generated achievements aren't just automated; they're tailored to the job you're applying for with a personal touch.

Tailoring across additional resume sections

While adding personalization to your professional summary and work experience is crucial, don't overlook other sections of your resume.

Your target title, skills, education, volunteer experience (and more!) should all be relevant to the role you're applying for, and they should incorporate keywords from the job description to match your experience to the role.

You can personalize these areas by selectively including information that speaks directly to the job description.

For instance, highlight specific hard skills in a dedicated "Skills" section (like Python, Figma, Webflow, or Scribe) or certifications (for example, PMP, Content Marketing, or CAA) that are directly relevant to the job. Taking this comprehensive approach ensures every part of your resume contributes to a cohesive and compelling story.

If you're looking for alignment clarity, compare your resume to job descriptions and see how well these sections (or any of your resume sections) correspond. Teal's Matching Mode can help you identify where your content is solid and what you need to personalize further.

Resume automation and personalization with Teal

When it comes to your resume, using AI and staying true to all you've accomplished requires a strategic and balanced approach.

AI is a game-changer, making resume-building a whole lot easier. But this efficiency doesn't detract from quality. Instead, using AI provides a strong foundation. It automates the basics, giving you a solid platform to personalize and speak to who you really are as a professional—showcasing your skills, qualifications, achievements, and impact in a relevant, aligned, and clear way.

If you're looking for a platform to help you automate and personalize resume creation with AI, keyword matching, job description alignment, and even an AI cover letter builder, sign up for Teal for free and blend efficiency with your personal story today.

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