LISTEN: Developing a large language model for neurodivergent job seekers

Credit: Adobe Stock photo

Large language models like ChatGPT and Claude AI have cemented themselves for many as a tool to find and apply for jobs.  

While efficient, these interfaces require tweaking if they’re going to work for all job seekers, like those with learning differences or intellectual disabilities.  

Mark Riedl is with the school of interactive computing at Georgia Tech. He says anyone who’s used generative AI chatbots to help get something done has probably noticed how generic its assistance can be.  

"If you just come into it and say, hey, I'm looking for a job, what should I do? It has almost no information about you," Riedl said.  

Most AI chatbots basically need to be trained to understand personal preferences. For people who already have trouble organizing information, it helps if an interface can present information in a more direct way faster. .  

"You really kind of want to have a dashboard that really kind of displays things in the right order, helps you work through a particular flow," he said.  

So that’s how a team of engineers led by Jennifer Kim, assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, designed their AI career coach for job seekers with intellectual and developmental disabilities. 

The career coach uses uploaded information, like a resume, to start its prompting. Users are given different options like “find a new job” and "figure out career direction."

"Let's say he has been very interested in post-secondary teaching," Kim explained. "So, he might click this one, then it shows top four strengths that are that are in his resume related to this specific job category."

The user and the chatbot can decide on a goal, and a colorful checklist pops up. Skills and strengths get broken into job categories. Another prompt brings up actual job listings, using the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET database to connect key words in job descriptions to user skill sets. 

Intentionally having information organized in this way can make the job search process a lot easier for neurodivergent students.  

"That's doing levels of complex processing that a person with an intellectual disability is gonna have a lot of difficulty with," said Heather Dicks, a human job coach and professor with Georgia Tech’s EXCEL program.  

Dicks said it can also help her students feel more confident when they go into assessments with her, or interviews with hiring managers.  

"They're excited about it," she said. "They've even participated on some levels in developing their own job coac."

The team plans to use more feedback from students in the EXCEL program before making the tool public.