How I Used ChatGPT

to Get a Job at ChatGPT

A case study in human + AI creative collaboration.

THE BRIEF:

Get a creative job at OpenAI.

The work excites me and I want to be part of where it’s going.

THE PROBLEM:

A résumé and portfolio felt like a conventional way to reach out to a company changing the way we work.

So I had an idea:

What if I used the product itself to help me get there?

THE IDEA:

Use ChatGPT to help me get a job at ChatGPT.

MY FIRST QUESTION:

ME:

“What do you think of the idea:
How I used ChatGPT to get a job at ChatGPT?”

CHATGPT:

“It’s a strong idea. The core is instantly understandable and unusually ownable.”

This simple idea became my approach.

But I didn’t ask ChatGPT to make my application.

I used it as a creative partner to rethink it.

I asked it to:

Strengthen my positioning

Critique my portfolio

Reorganize my work

Challenge my assumptions

Help me stand out

Identify the right people to reach

THE POSITIONING CHANGED

I moved from:

SVP, Group Creative Director.

To the thing I’ve actually spent my career doing:

I make complicated things simple and worth caring about.

THE PORTFOLIO CHANGED

Before, my portfolio essentially said:

Here is the work I’ve done.

The better question became:

What does this work say about how I think?

That changed the order, the framing of the ideas, what stayed and what went.

THE PERSPECTIVE SHARPENED

ChatGPT didn’t change the ideas. It helped me get clearer about what each one was really proving.

Visa is about using AI to rapidly prove a global creative platform.

Ally is about making a digital bank feel more human.

Google Photos is about finding the emotional value inside technology.

Tito’s stayed what it was: A culturally relevant idea.

THE APPLICATION EVOLVED

What began as:

How do I get a job at OpenAI?

Became:

How do I demonstrate the kind of creative thinking I would bring to OpenAI?

BUT I ALSO DISAGREED WITH CHATGPT

That was when the work got better.

CHATGPT SAID: Your portfolio should demonstrate mostly AI fluency.

I SAID: Yes. But not at the expense of the work that highlighted humanity and emotion.

CHATGPT SAID: Create an AI-native creative case study.

I SAID: The application already is one.

CHATGPT SAID: Explain in more detail.

I SAID: Make it simpler. Again. And again.

WHAT AI WAS GOOD AT

Speed.
Breadth.
Research.
Iteration.
Provocation.

WHAT I WAS STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR

Taste.
Judgment.
Emotion.
Rejection.
The idea.

WHAT I LEARNED:

AI could give me more possibilities.

It couldn’t decide what felt right. What felt like me.

That was still my job.

RESULT:

You’re looking at it.

And now, there’s only one thing ChatGPT can’t do for me.