What generic AI gets wrong with this prompt
Three hundred words is short enough that every generic-AI habit costs double. These are the four that show up on this prompt.
It forces a straight line from childhood to your goal
Generic AI loves the tidy arc — because my parents struggled with money, I will fix finance for families like mine. Cause-and-effect life stories dominate its training data, so it compresses your path into destiny. Readers see that forced arc constantly, and it converts a question about judgment into a fable. Real paths bend; the bends are where your reasoning shows.
Ask your AI — “Does my draft claim one early experience explains my end goal? What choices connect those two points?”
It narrates events where HBS asked for choices
Joined the firm, got promoted, moved to the new team. Generic AI writes what happened, because your resume is event-shaped and the reasoning behind each fork was never typed in. But the prompt’s operative word is choices — the committee wants to know what you weighed and why you moved, and a draft of events answers a question nobody asked.
Ask your AI — “For each move in my career this draft mentions, does it say why I chose it over the alternative I had? List the moves where the why is missing.”
It writes a highlights reel instead of a through-line
Given a resume and 300 words, generic AI tries to fit everything in — the model summarizes what it was given rather than judging what belongs. The result reads as scattered wins with no spine. A reflection this short holds two or three connected choices; more than that and none of them get a why.
Ask your AI — “If you had to state the single thread connecting every experience in my draft, what is it? Which paragraphs don’t hang on that thread?”
Your aspiration comes out interchangeable
“I want to drive impact in technology” — generic AI ends with ambition-flavored filler because it can average a thousand goal statements but can’t know the specific problem you want to own. On a 300-word essay the ending is a third of the real estate, and an interchangeable goal undoes the choices that led to it.
Ask your AI — “From my final paragraph alone, could a stranger say what role I’m aiming for and what problem I want to work on? What would they get wrong?”