Going through the tenure and promotion process is like writing your own biography, while under pressure. It’s tedious and stressful, and in some ways, a little quirky. What other job out there are you required to write about all your accomplishments as a requirement to keep your job? If you’re a tenured tract faculty, you know what we’re talking about. You’re writing narratives (about yourself) detailing your scholarship, teaching, and service. Writing about yourself can be weird, somewhat painful, and oddly slow.

In the midst of going through the tenure process, I stumbled upon a podcast, and the hosts suggested this game-changer – uploading your CV into NotebookLM from Google. Then, boom, an idea hit me. That night, I opened my NotebookLM account, uploaded my CV, and listened to the 13-minute conversation between two people talking about me as if I were the subject of their podcast.

As I was listening to this AI narration of myself, I couldn’t help but think, “Wow…I need to meet this guy. He sounds awesome.” Every time I show this tip to colleagues, they’re shocked and floored. The natural cadence, inflection, and appropriate pause in the voices of the AI narrators are nothing short of amazing. 

I created a sample CV for a fictitious instructor using ChatGPT and used this to create an Audio Overview, this will give you an idea of what NotebookLM outputs. Breaking your CV into a conversational format helps connect ideas you may not have seen as related.

NotebookLM has a great tool that allows whatever information you upload to be transformed into a podcast hosted by two voices (one male, one female). You can watch a video overview from Santrel Media for some great tips on using NotebookLM.

A new Beta feature allows you to interact with the podcast hosts by asking questions, acting like a call-in show. You can ask questions or participate in the conversation at any time by clicking “Join”. This could be an interesting feature to ask deeper questions or to find other connections within your CV.

To try this out, head over to Google’s NotebookLM!

How are you using NotebookLM?

We’d love to hear your ideas. NotebookLM is a powerful tool that can be used for your teaching, research, or maybe you’re using it for something totally different. Share how you’re using or what you hope to use this powerful tool for below!

Image for this post was created using ChatGPT.