The ACRES approach
Generative AI (GenAI) platforms can be valuable in supporting your career planning, but there are principles we would recommend being responsible, effective and ethical with use. This resulted in the ‘ACRES’ acronym - 5 steps you should take when using Generative AI in the context of career planning:
A – Assess
Identify your specific goals and assistance you need from GenAI before using it.
C – Clarify
Define context and constraints within your inputs or prompts when using GenAI.
R – Refine
Personalise AI outputs to reflect your voice and experience effectively
E - Engage
Use AI collaboratively as a ‘partner’, iterate sensibly and apply critical judgement on the responses to ensure reliability and validity
S – Synthesise
Consolidate insights into a coherent, authentic final version outside of the confines of the GenAI platform.
Getting started with AI for career planning
Which AI tools can I use safely as an LSE student?
LSE-approved tools with enhanced security:
- Microsoft Copilot – Access through your LSE Microsoft 365 account (data not used for training the model)
- Anthropic Claude – Via LSE's partnership (again, student data protected from training the AI model)
- CareerSet – LSE Careers’ AI-powered CV and cover letter review tool
- Shortlist.me – Interview practice platform with AI feedback
Even with approved tools, avoid sharing sensitive personal information like full addresses, passport details, or confidential employment history. Use anonymised examples where possible. With other GenAI platforms (eg, ChatGPT, Gemini) you can typically adjust privacy and data training settings, but those versions provided by LSE have such settings built in by default.
What is LSE Careers' position on using AI for career planning?
We encourage responsible and ethical use of AI to enhance your career development. It’s a tool that helps you work more efficiently in some areas, but you need to understand the underlying principles and apply critical thinking to the outputs.
Key principles:
- Use AI as an assistant, not a replacement for your own thinking
- Always personalise and critically evaluate AI outputs
- Your ability to challenge and critically judge outputs is paramount – GenAI can easily hallucinate output related to employment (eg, statements on company values, deadlines for applications, career options based on ‘invented’ fit)
- Maintain authenticity – your unique voice and experiences should shine through
- Where AI can be used to generate output at speed, if this is going to inform something you’re putting out to a professional audience (eg, in an application), realise that lack of personalisation and verifiable information will be very apparent to employers and recruiters (eg, by their seeing of the same repeated phrases across different candidates’ applications)
- Follow the principles of the ACRES framework for a structured, ethical use in career planning.
How can I tell if my use of AI is ethical and appropriate?
The goal is to use AI to help you think better about your career, not to think for you. Ask yourself these questions:
- Am I using AI to inform rather than create my final output?
- Does the final result authentically represent my voice and experiences?
- Have I applied critical thinking to verify and refine the AI's suggestions?
- Am I learning from the process rather than just copying outputs?
- It’s important that if you’re ‘learning’ something for the first time in an AI output in relation to career planning, do further research outside of the platform, checking reputable sources (eg, LSE Careers, professional bodies, company websites) so that you can truly confirm understanding and be empowered in your career thinking
- Would I be comfortable explaining my AI use to an employer if asked?
CVs and cover letters
Can I use AI to write my CV and cover letter?
AI can be good for generating first drafts, brainstorming content, and providing structural guidance, but you must edit and personalise the output extensively. Here's how to do it right:
Good uses:
- Analysing job descriptions to identify key skills and keywords
- Suggesting ways to better articulate your experiences
- Providing structural templates (eg, from LSE Careers) and formatting ideas
- Helping you tailor content to specific roles
What to avoid:
- Using AI-generated text without significant personalisation
- Generic, buzzword-heavy language with unedited ‘GenAI cliches’
- Inaccurate or exaggerated claims about your experience
- Content that doesn't sound like your authentic voice
- Start by using CareerSet (provided by LSE Careers) to get AI feedback on your draft, then use Microsoft Copilot or Claude to brainstorm improvements, but always finalise your content yourself.
How can I use AI to research organisations for my cover letter?
AI can quickly conduct initial career research foundations and helping you identify possible motivation points. Try this structured approach:
Step one – Comprehensive research prompt:
"I am applying for a [role title] with [organisation name]. Acting as a detailed research assistant, provide 3 bullet points in each category - 1) Industry trends and challenges, 2) Organisation's key projects and initiatives, 3) Products/services offered, 4) Key stakeholders and clients, 5) Other ways - to demonstrate possible areas of motivation for this specific role I can develop to express my personal interest in the organisation and role"
Step two – Verify and dig deeper:
- Check the AI's sources and visit these outside of the platform, as well as checking against the organisation's website
- Look for recent news articles and press releases
- Cross-reference information from multiple sources
Step three – Connect to your experience:
Ask AI to help you brainstorm connections between your interests/experience and the organisation's work, but make the final connections yourself. Rather than write an essay on some facts about the organisation or the role, try to link them to your own experiences and reasons for why you may find them interesting or engaging as part of your potential career journey with them.
Application forms and interviews
How can I use AI to prepare for interviews?
AI can help with interview preparation when used strategically and with well-informed inputs:
Question generation:
- Upload job descriptions (eg, PDF files) and ask for role-specific questions
- Ensure no personal or confidential information is included
- Request competency, motivational, and commercial awareness questions in accordance with any instructions you may have received from the employer
- Ask for industry-specific scenarios and challenges to help widen your understanding and ability to empathise with the organisation’s requirements of a candidate
Answer structure:
- Get help structuring STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result/Reflection) responses
- Brainstorm examples from your experience
- Practice articulating your key achievements
Example prompt:
"I have a 30-minute interview for [role] at [company]. Attached is a person specification for the role. Generate 5 competency questions based on the job description, 5 motivational questions, and 5 commercial awareness questions including current affairs relevant to this industry."
Using AI-generated questions to practice and prepare for interviews can be incredibly helpful, but don't memorise scripted answers. The questions you’ll be asked in interviews will vary, so having familiarity with the sorts of questions you may face will enable you to have the ability to be adaptable and authentic in the actual interview – and help you be confident in the moment. You can also use the Shortlist.me platform to help prepare and respond to interview questions.
Can I use AI for application form questions?
This requires careful consideration of employer guidelines as there is much variation. Whilst these numbers will change regularly, for example, the Institute of Student Employers (ISE) reports:
- 33% of employers questioned actively allowed AI use for application questions
- 32% recommend against AI use in the hiring process in general, 6% ban it completely
- 45% employers were ‘currently investigating their selection process due to generative AI
Separately, suggested by Luminate’s Early Career Survey (2025) that 26% of candidates reported ‘relying on’ AI to answer application form questions. Regardless of a specific employer’s view or policy on GenAI, overreliance on these platforms and not being balanced and ethical in your approach (eg, using ACRES in your thinking) is likely to create generic application answers that are less likely to be successful in any case. In summary:
- Always check and follow specific employer AI policies
- Use AI for brainstorming and structuring ideas only
- In these cases, use your critical judgement on outputs and a ‘sensibly iterative’ approach, using for brainstorming ideas and gathering thoughts rather than final versions
- Ensure final answers are crafted to be accurate, reflecting your authentic voice and experience
- Apply approaches (like ACRES) that allow you effectively use GenAI with sense-checks
- Avoid: generic language, overuse of buzzwords, poor explanation of organisation-specific concepts, and questionable punctuation patterns or turns of phrase (make sure you would say anything you write yourself).
Career exploration and planning
How can AI help me explore different career paths?
To use GenAI in career exploration can be helpful to give ideas and thoughts. However, to be effective, you need to combine this with self-reflection and be critical of what you know to be true – or use trusted sources to explore things further. For example, a prompt to find ‘roles related to policy for graduates’ is likely to draw suggestions to specific contexts (eg, the UK Civil Service and nationality requirements) or reaffirm your existing thinking given GenAI can be ‘sycophantic’ or aiming to please in its suggestions.
It can definitely help as a basis for the following, however, so long as you build on this with your own critical thinking, verify with other trusted sources, and use peers, contacts or indeed LSE Careers to act as sounding boards for your thoughts:
Career options:
- Input a summary of your experience, academic background and interests for role suggestions to start to explore, being mindful of sharing any personal or confidential details (just give outlines)
- Explore transferable skills across different industries, particularly if you ask to draw on sources like professional bodies or prominent voices on skills such as the World Economic Forum or OECD (or relate to the LSE Careers Skills Framework)
- Get insights into day-to-day responsibilities in various roles, which may form the basis of research you can check against live job descriptions to verify
Industry research:
- Understand sector trends and future outlook (again ask for trusted sources in that industry eg, professional bodies, or utilise quality sources like the FT’s built-in AI search tool)
- Identify key employers and typical career paths, if you are specific in your prompts around location, level and roles, allowing you to cross-check with other sources (e.g. LinkedIn, job sites or company websites)
Example prompt:
"I'm studying [degree] at LSE and am interested in [areas]. An overview of my experience is [ ]. Suggest 10 specific roles that might suit my background, explain the typical responsibilities, and identify the skills I'd need to develop, particularly thinking about the future of the work in the next 3-5 years. I am looking to work in [country or region], so roles should be relevant to this context. Use [a trusted source eg, the LSE Careers employment sector pages] to support this research. Provide me online sources to explore these further and reflect on."
Always verify AI suggestions about organisations and roles – AI can sometimes ‘hallucinate’ or provide outdated information. Even well-written prompts and even detailed AI agents tend to create ideas based on described relationships (eg, studying economics means there are careers you should do based on data), so the responses should only ever be one view you can consider, given the non-linear nuances and multi-layered reasons why we may actually be drawn to a particular set of responsibilities or career!
Can AI help with networking and building professional relationships?
Some ways you could use GenAI in this way are:
Information interview preparation:
- Generate thoughtful starting points for information interview questions using frameworks like TIARA (Trends, Insights, Advice, Resources, Assignments)
- Practice articulating your career interests and goals, for example giving you a bullet-pointed draft for an ‘elevator pitch’ or introduction
- Research some key challenges and trends in the organisation or industry the interviewee works in, based on news sources or published reports (the FT AI search could also be used here)
LinkedIn and outreach:
- Distil a concise draft for connection requests and messages, which you can personalise and use as starting points for networking
- Support in structuring follow-up communications effectively, based on key takeaways from your conversations (being mindful of confidential or sensitive information)
- LSE’s Ask an Alum platform utilises a LLM to send your questions to alumni who are best placed to answer, based on its analysis
- Help in building networking habits into your schedule: for example, with a prompt like – "Using habit stacking principles, help me build a routine to send two LinkedIn outreach messages per week. I currently want to reach out because [your reasons for wanting to network] but I feel that [describe anything that may be holding you back in doing so eg, time commitment, worry about what to say]. Suggest a simple weekly structure."
How do I get better at writing AI prompts?
The below have been created with reference to LSE’s AI Fluency and Framework Moodle course, section six:
- Use roleplay: "Act as a labour market researcher…” or "You are a recruiter..." – or define an ‘agent’ in CoPilot or define a ‘style’ in Claude.
- Provide context: Include job descriptions, your background, specific constraints or files relevant to aid GenAI in having relevant background – but ensure you are mindful of privacy and security, sharing only what you need to
- Be specific and provide constraints: Instead of "help with my CV," say "improve the leadership section of my CV to better reflect my experience managing the university SDG project" – use the ACRES approach to help
- Specify format: Request bullet points, word limits, specific tone – though remember GenAI output should never be your final version when it comes to careers and your own voice and input is your key differentiator!
- Use action words: For example, "Analyse," "compare," "suggest," "identify" enable the response to take a specific course of action – be as unambiguous as possible. Give context: Be specific about what you want, why you want it, and relevant background
- Ask for a step-by-step approach: Guide the AI through multi-step reasoning, which also allows you to verify sources and apply your critical judgement on outputs, directing AI to use only what you are sure is ‘good’ in this sense
- Use examples: If you have an existing example or source, use this to show the GenAI platform the style of output that you're looking for
Use the ACRES approach to allow for sensible iterations to improve outputs and your critical judgement of these outputs and how effective they are in the particular context of your career planning, personal aims and professional goals.
Available tools and resources
What AI-powered career tools does LSE and LSE Careers provide?
Content last updated: 1 October 2025