Can AI help with your resume when you don't know what to put on it?
‘Describe your achievements’ is a hard instruction when the work felt like keeping the place running. You answered the phone, dealt with a missing order and showed the new person what to do. That gives you something to start with, even if you don't have a percentage to put beside it. Harvard's Mignone Center for Career Success has existing guidance on using AI for resumes: begin with your draft or details of your experience, treat generated wording as suggested edits, and be able to explain every line in an interview. I'd try a step before asking for a rewrite: ‘Help me remember what I did in this job. Ask me about one busy shift, one question at a time. Don't add numbers or responsibilities I haven't given you.’ Use a description without personal details or confidential information from work. Then choose one real example and ask for a plain resume bullet. If ‘helped a new colleague learn the till’ comes back as ‘led a company-wide training programme’, put it back. You don't need a grander job to have something worth describing. That's a way I'd try getting unstuck, not a prompt I've tested or evidence of better hiring results. Check the employer's rules on AI help before using it in an application.
Comments
Keep “one busy shift” attached to any numbers that come out of that conversation. In an invented example, remembering 40 calls on an unusually hectic day would not support “handled 40 calls daily”. Ask the assistant to flag any wording that turns a single example into a typical workload, or a team result into something you achieved alone. You can keep the concrete detail without making it sound routine. That gives you a claim you can explain in an interview instead of a number you have to defend.