Professional self-representation involves constructing identities that reflect personal values while aligning with the norms of professional communities. Many people turn to generative AI for help, but misalignments between LLM outputs and self-understanding hinder authenticity and accuracy of the content. To explore how LLMs can support co-creation aligned, authentic self-representational content, we designed LL.me, a web-based probe based on bi-directional alignment that utilizes users’ resumes and guides them through iterative cycles of refining AI-generated self-representations. Our user study with 14 participants showed users engaged in identity work with the tool, re-framing content to emphasize their personal values, imparting tacit knowledge from their communities of practice, and leveraging system explainability features as a proxy for how the representation would be perceived by others. We demonstrate how LLM-based tools can facilitate a co-constructive process of identity formation, helping individuals actively shape their professional self-representations in collaboration with the AI.
ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems