AI can do a lot, but it won’t automate your career.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT has the ability to whip up a resume or cover letter in less than five minutes based on the information you feed it.
But beware — recruiters can tell.
“Easily 25% of apps appear to be AI-generated,” Bonnie Dilber, a recruiting manager with app-automation company Zapier, told HuffPost.
“A good recruiter can spot an AI-written application from a mile away,” Laurie Chamberlin, head of LHH Recruitment Solutions in North America, added.
And with recruiters being able to spot the artificial intelligence, it leaves a sour taste in their mouth — and makes them think you’re not up for the job.
“It signals to me that the person may not know what they are talking about or how to blend AI-generated content with their own ideas,” Dilber said.
Dilber shared that the biggest red flag that a candidate used AI for their application is when it reads like a formulated template that’s been copy-pasted and has a “robotic tone.”
“I almost always see words like ‘adept,’ ‘tech-savvy’ and ‘cutting-edge’ repeatedly now on resumes for tech roles,” Gabrielle Woody, a university recruiter for the financial software company Intuit, told the outlet.
“I mostly review intern and entry-level resumes, and many of the early-career candidates I reviewed were not using those terms in their applications before ChatGPT.”
Chamberlin added that the generic buzzwords are a dead giveaway for her.
“We might catch candidates listing skills like ‘excellent communicator’ or ‘team player,’ but they don’t back them up with real-life examples,” she said. “The absence of specificity, authenticity and personal touch can be a red flag.”
There’s also the lack of care and editing when using AI tools, which is a problem, too.
Tejal Wagadia, a recruiter for a major tech company, said she often sees applications come in that have the font, parentheses or phrases such as “add numbers here” that come directly from ChatGPT.
“They will literally copy and paste that into their resume without any kind of editing,” Wagadia said. “If you’re missing that level of detail, it shows the employer that you’re not detail-oriented. Yeah you use technology, but not well.”
If you’re using an AI-generated job application with an AI-powered assistant to help you, you’re not the only one. Hundreds of other candidates likely had the same idea, and your sentence structures and formatting will read similarly to theirs.
For example, Dilber noted that the “Why are you interested in this position?” question on a job application often generates the same word-for-word response through ChatGPT of “Company’s mission of ‘insert mission statement’ resonates with me and my experience in ‘insert their current job.’”
“After seeing this exact same response over and over again, it becomes clear that the candidates are all using AI,” she said.
AI even generates the same anecdotes for potential candidates. On the Zapier job application, it asks applicants about about how to use their product, which automates tasks.
“A bunch of people all came up with the same use case of a flower shop,” Dilber explained. “First time I saw it, it was cute. The next few times, it becomes obvious they all plugged this into the same tool.”
Recruiters advise that if you’re going to use ChatGPT, it should be used simply as a starting point or to help with a first draft, but you need to be sure to edit it and make it personal to your experiences, making your job application “targeted and not templated.”
“You can ask ChatGPT to break down a job description or identify the most relevant skills and experiences for the position you’re applying to,” Wagadia said. “It’s better to have five targeted applications where you put in effort than 100 where the other person can clearly tell that you’re not interested.”
“If the company was simply looking for AI-generated work, they’d use an AI tool,” Dilber added. “They are trying to hire a human for the unique things only humans can offer, so make sure your application showcases that.”
