LinkedIn reports a steep rise (21-fold increase!) in ChatGPT-related job postings. Prompt engineers are highly paid and in- demand, and you don’t need an engineering background. How should you tweak your resume for prompt engineering jobs? Can liberal arts majors and people without technical training be competitive? How about mid- and late-career professionals?
For the latest on breaking into this new field, I interviewed Marc Cenedella, founder of Leet Resumes and The Ladders and the author of seven Amazon Careers #1 bestsellers, including Ladders Resume Guide and Ladders Interviews Guide:
Marc Cenedella, founder of Leet Resumes and The Ladders
Marc Cenedella
Caroline Ceniza-Levine: Is there a typical background (e.g., previous experience, specific education) for prompt engineers?
Marc Cenedella: Not yet. This technology is so new that it’s too soon to define “typical.” Think about applying to work at IBM when the first computers were coming out in the 1950s. No one knew how to operate computers, much less build them. To get work in the field, knowledge of railroads, steel, or punchcards simply didn’t matter. It was one’s ability to talk with infectious enthusiasm about the latest thing coming out this week that set them apart. That’s just as true with this latest technological revolution.
Ceniza-Levine: Since it’s a new field, what are employers searching for? What kind of skills, expertise and experience do they want and expect?
Cenedella: Employers want applicants that demonstrate interest, capability, and skill. No slick resume trickery or personal brand marketing is going to get you there. Practice as much as you can with the AI tools available to you (ChatGPT, Stable Diffusion, BERT). Jobseekers should be able to discuss usage examples and pros and cons of each example with a job interviewer.
People who want to work as Prompt Engineers should develop familiarity with:
- AI Tools from the basic Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Bard to more complex tools like PromptLayer which allows you to track, manage and share your work.
- APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)
- Terms like temperature, max_tokens, frequency_penalty, presence_penalty
- Individual models and when to use them. Models include GPT-4 (8K and 32K), GPT-3.5-turbo (4K and 16K), Babbage, and Curie
Ceniza-Levine: How does the ideal resume for prompt engineers differ from your traditional resume (e.g., specific keywords, different structure entirely)?
Cenedella: At Leet Resumes we recommend formatting resumes for Prompt Engineer jobs in the same simple structure as any other job. One column. No fancy formatting. No graphics. No photos.
As with resumes for other jobs, applicants should include numbers that demonstrate their skills. So don’t just say, “Wrote ChatGPT prompts.” Instead, quantify your accomplishments. Try a bullet point that says something like, “Created a ChatGPT prompt script to build a social media content calendar template that saved the marketing department 100 hours a month in overtime.” Not sure how to quantify your accomplishments? Leet.co will walk you through the process step-by-step so you don’t have to worry about it.
As for keywords, applicants will benefit from bullet points that outline hard skills and skill development efforts.
Ceniza-Levine: How can liberal arts majors or people without technical training break through the resume screen and get invited for interviews?
Cenedella: Demonstrate excitement and enthusiasm about this emerging field. Think about when the printing press was invented. There were no printing press operators. No one but Johannes Gutenberg, who invented it, knew how to insert letters, apply ink, or any of it. Scribes, who had previously made books, didn’t really have transferable skills. That meant the door was wide open for a new communication revolution. In your cover letter, resume, and interviews show that you understand what a revolutionary technology this is and explain what you’re doing to learn as much as possible about it.
Ceniza-Levine: If you don’t have tech industry experience or experience in tech roles, what can you do to your resume to make it more competitive?
Cenedella: Specifically explain what you have been doing to develop your skills in this space. For example, you can add a bullet that says, “Invest 10 hours weekly in developing AI skills via research and hands-on experimentation.” In your cover letter you might demonstrate your enthusiasm by saying something like, “ I read the latest academic papers on Large Language Model (LLM capabilities), participate in OpenAI forums, and experiment with which models work best under various conditions.”
Ceniza-Levine: How should mid- and late-career professionals refine their resumes for prompt engineer jobs? For someone with 10, 20, 30 years of experience in a different role, is that realistic?
Cenedella: It’s certainly realistic. The most exciting thing about this is that the people who we will consider experts five years from now are just as amateur as anyone else right now. Mid-career professionals and late-career professionals can fold AI into their current field of expertise. On resumes, they should note how exactly they are merging the two. Provide concrete examples of how you generated AI prompts to drive success in your current role.
Ceniza-Levine: What resources are available to candidates who are interested in prompt engineering jobs and want to learn more?
Cenedella: Curiosity is the best resource. The best way to learn is by doing. Candidates must get their hands dirty by actively playing with all of the AI tools available to them. Candidates can go straight to the source of the AI tools they’ll be using. Sign up for updates from OpenAI, read their forums, and engage with the OpenAI community. They can also sign up for AI newsletters, there are dozens – if not hundreds – to choose from right now. There are some educational and certificate programs emerging but it’s too soon to evaluate how useful those will be.who want to work remotely.
