{"id":297,"date":"2025-04-18T19:22:32","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T19:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/horizons\/?p=297"},"modified":"2025-04-21T16:09:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T16:09:25","slug":"ai-meets-advising-oregon-state-launches-career-tool-tailored-to-beavs-by-beavs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/horizons\/2025\/04\/18\/ai-meets-advising-oregon-state-launches-career-tool-tailored-to-beavs-by-beavs\/","title":{"rendered":"AI meets advising: Oregon State launches career tool tailored to Beavs, by Beavs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The OSU AI Career Assistant was developed by student workers and trained on OSU-specific resources<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Two
Maggie Willard is one of the career assistants trained to use the OSU AI Career Assistant as a supplemental tool during peer advising sessions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Student workers at Oregon State\u2019s Career Development Center have a new tool to use during career advising appointments. It\u2019s a custom AI chat, trained on OSU\u2019s own career resources, that they actively participated in developing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched this spring, the OSU AI Career Assistant is a custom AI tool based on Open AI\u2019s ChatGPT platform. It’s designed to aid the Career Development Center\u2019s team of student career assistants (CAs). CAs advise their classmates on all things career-related, helping fellow Beavs with resumes, cover letters, interview preparation, and other questions related to exploring careers and securing jobs and internships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really cool tool that is used to supplement what we\u2019re already doing, and just make sure that we\u2019re providing students with the best resources and support that we can,\u201d said Emma Partridge, a public health major who is one of five OSU career assistants currently trained to use the AI tool. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michal Kawka, Director of Career Education for Oregon State, said he was inspired to create the OSU AI Career Assistant because he was curious about the possibilities it offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the new things in AI in the last year has been the ability to create custom chats, right? These don\u2019t just rely on generic technology. We can customize them content-wise and behavior-wise to a specific use case,\u201d he said. \u201cSo that’s when we thought, okay. How about if we try to add ChatGPT as a tool for peer advising appointments, where it does not replace a human interaction, but augments that interaction?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How might it augment the interaction? Very often, just by listening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a career advising appointment, and only with student permission, a CA can activate a dictation function in a regular Microsoft Word document. As the CA inquires about the student\u2019s career goals and provides guidance, a transcript is generated. The CA can then provide the transcript to the OSU AI Career Assistant and prompt it for additional insights based on what it heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHonestly, I was kind of amazed the first time that I used it,\u201d said Maggie Willard, a CA who participated in a practice session with Kawka as part of her training. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the practice appointment, Kawka interviewed Willard about her work and academic experiences, and together they brainstormed ways she could improve her resume. Then, they shared their transcript with the OSU AI Career Assistant and asked it for some ideas.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt picked up on this very specific project I had talked about, and then Michal and I took that suggestion and refined it from there for my resume,\u201d she said. \u201cIt took a whole conversation that we had, and it just completely picked out the bits and pieces that were important and kind of morphed it into what I could use. I felt like it helped pull everything together and put the bow on top of it, out of the conversation that we were already having.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>
\n

CA Emma Partridge is excited to take her experience developing and using the custom AI tool with her to future job opportunities.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In another appointment, Kawka and a CA worked with a student who was preparing to interview for a specific job. They used the OSU AI Career Assistant for help in several ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n