When traditional job-hunting tactics failed him, Indian-origin man Amar Saurabh turned to AI, but not in the usual way. After five years at TikTok and Meta, Saurabh began searching for a more stable role in the US. But two months into applying, he had landed just a handful of interviews. “After not finding much help from ChatGPT, I came up with the idea of creating a custom GPT,” he told Business Insider.
According to his LinkedIn, Saurabh has a Bachelor’s in Computer and Information Sciences from Bengaluru’s BMS College of Engineering and a master’s in Product Management from Carnegie Mellon University. Saurabh initially used ChatGPT to draft recruiter messages while applying for the jobs. The results, however, were comically off. “ChatGPT kept mixing up my job search with other topics I asked about,” he said.
Made custom GPT in under two hours
So he took matters into his own hands. Using ChatGPT’s paid tier, Saurabh built a custom GPT, “PM Job Search Advisor”, in under two hours. He trained it with his résumé, LinkedIn profile and career goals, asking it to focus solely on senior product management roles.
The result was an AI assistant that drafted tailored recruiter messages, optimised résumés for specific roles, identified key contacts and even prepped him for interviews. While the tool sometimes forgot details, Saurabh treated it like a human assistant. “I’d have to remind it, “Hey, you have all my information. Do you remember this conversation we had?” It would come back saying something like “oh yeah, sorry for not taking that into account,” and it would. It was like talking to a person,” the Business Insider report quoted Saurabh as saying.
Payoff was worth it
In just two months, his AI-powered strategy earned him at least seven interviews, including with Reddit, Intuit and PayPal. “I officially quit TikTok and signed papers to start my new job at PayPal,” he said.
Saurabh further mentioned that he would use a custom GPT again for any future job search.
“The benefits of a custom GPT are confounding and will only get better as more information is added. My next step would be to build out my GPT to have agentic capabilities, meaning it could apply to jobs and answer application questions for me,” he concluded.