If everyone uses AI how do employers choose who to interview?

[dontcomeatme]

This is more of a curiosity than a real AIBU. Basically my DW is applying for a new job, it's definitely a step up in her career but quite a natural curve for her current experience and skills.
The application is gruelling. Last night she started using AI to help with the answers and to get all of the job specifications into her paragraphs. She was using something called copilot? I have never used AI before and I was intrigued. Her answers sound amazing and she was able to put in personal experiences and information.
My question would be, surely the employers are aware of AI, and if everyone uses this type of software to make their application look and sound better, how on earth would they decide who to give an interview to?
Surely any person idiot with a computer or phone can use AI to make themselves sound absolutely amazing and perfect for the job, but unless they meet in person they have no idea what they're actually like? How are employers going to get around this? Just interview every single application?
I mentioned this to DW last night and she said I made her feel like a cheat, which was not my intention at all! Genuinely curious how company's will navigate this. But I suppose it goes deeper than that doesn't it, college essays could be completely written by AI, how would anyone know? A whole new world to me this!

It’s so tricky applying for jobs, following

AI uses key word search to match job description to cv

Eg if the job advert asks for MS office, the AI will search for the word "MS office" and highlight all cvs that match this

If your cv has space you could insert a section in white text at the bottom with a string of keywords to cover every key word so the cv comes up in searches

I used AI for an application i put in today.
I wrote the application in my own words. I then put sections into AI and asked it to improve the writing. I then reviewed the writing and accepted some changes but removed a fair bit. I guess it's like having a really fast copy editor.
AI gave me quite a few pet peeves of mine in writing which I took out.
I haven't used AI for this sort of thing but I'd met with my potential boss and they suggested.

The trick to using AI successfully for job applications is to use it to help with being clear, succinct and professional sounding, but using your actual experience.

For example I was hiring last year for a role and we saw loads of generic AI sounding answers - all mentioned that they had the criteria (eg project management experience or stakeholder management etc) but with no concrete info.

There were then some that sounded like they may have used AI to phrase it but for every skill they mentioned, they then backed it up with 'for example in my role at X I lead on Y project by doing A, B and C and the outcome was D'. Those people got interviews.

So it's fine to use AI to help with language (I was also job hunting this year and used it - got loads of interviews), as long as you incorporate real experience.

For interview I choose the ones with the best qualifications and relevant experience. You can't AI an interview, so it's easy at that stage to work out who actually knows what they're talking about.

Our recruitment process specifies that we don’t accept AI-written applications and we run it all through software to identify the use of AI. It’s not foolproof, of course, but it’s pretty obvious when you meet someone that they’ve used AI and we generally wouldn’t progress them.

I’m a hiring manager and you can spot a mile off who’s just copy and pasted an AI cv.

or the biggest give away when they haven’t checked the spelling and it’s kept the the z as it’s using American English, ie emphazised

To be honest so long as people have the right skills, Im not fussed if people use AI, to help craft their CV.

if they haven’t got the skills no amount of ai can solve that and if they’ve lied embellished the skills they have, that will get picked up in the interview

Imho we'll move to a more European system at senior levels where career progress is slower and harder, but based on concrete experience. In your example, sounds like your wife has the experience to underpin her application, but it's pretty easy to tell when that is not the case.

How you pick between candidates at entry level I have no idea - go back to the days of essays like the Chinese civil service and allow everyone to use AI on equal terms, so that it is what they make of it?

I recently read several job applications and watched presentations given by applicants. It was curious to me how similar they were, in their substance. The same theories and ideas kept popping up again and again, when the question posed was very open ended.
I fed chat gpt the job description, person specification and presentation prompt, and guess what?! Even though everything everyone had said individually was perfectly acceptable, even impressive, taken in aggregate it was immediately obvious to me who had been relying on AI and who had come with their own original ideas.

Use AI for job applications with caution!

Match the words to the JD. If calls customers, clients, use clients.

Also do not fully copy and paste the CV, just swap a few words about. One thing I have noticed with AI is that hyphenates terms which we don't. Plus its US spellings - check for those. As many employers reject fully copy n paste CVs.

For the role which I accepted a job offer last week for civil service (still no start date), I had to do a 250 word statement of suitability. Had to be as close to 250 (mine was 249). Used AI as a framework to construct the statement.

I always send in my CV with a note to say it's all my own work and that I haven't used any AI to get answers.

Anyone with a twitter of wit can spot AI written material at a thousand yards. An application form should reflect your actual abilities. If you need to use AI to fill in the form then you are probably not able for the job.

Anyone with a twitter of wit

Well that's just ruled out 50% of anyone.

More to the point is that the "AI" they use to scan submissions can't itself spot "AI". So you are in an arms race of trying to fool the fool.

Naive observers would imagine this would lead to a collapse in the system eventually. However that's before they have the Peter Principle explained to them with specific reference to the UKs ongoing productivity problem.

Oh dear. No it doesn't. That's your first-year coder's basic python script that can manage that!

AI converts the meaning of words into it's own AI language, and then looks for a match - from both the job description and the CV.

Similar to when we repeat a conversation to someone else. We don't 'keyword match' and repeat the discussion word for word, we absorb the meaning and then paraphrase it back in our own words.

It would also recognise your sly keyword stuffing for what it was and hopefully you wouldn't be shortlisted.

In 99% of cases is plainly obvious when someone has used AI on their application. DS was recruiting recently and any obvious AI ones were rejected. If those they interviewed it became obvious straight away that one candidate had slipped through and had not written their application.
Don't do it.
Stand out by not using AI.

All "AI" is just very fancy very fast pattern matching. Nothing else. It ain't ever gonna get anything from first principles.

How ? They run the CVs through "AI" which - as we already know - can't spot "AI".

Employers can use AI.

upload all cvs and applications and ask who most closely match the role description

My daughter recently got a new job. She didn't use AI.

There were 500 applicants. Her new employer told her that they can tell if AI is used. Using it did not seem to be viewed positively. So for some jobs at least, maybe the AI generated ones are less likely to make a good impression.

I interviewed some candidates last week. Part of the process was to also respond to a brief, create a presentation in advance and then present it on the day. One particular candidate stood out - excellent written application meeting every essential criteria, a polished and well curated slide deck submitted. The actual interview was car crash for a number of reasons. They openly said at one point they'd used AI tooling to craft the application and create the slide deck. Didn't understand the role, were clearly out of their depth, were over familiar with panel, zero grasp on what we were looking for and had done no research or prep. But clever use of AI clearly got them through shortlisting.

When the supporting statement bears no relation to the work experience detailed in the application it’s very obvious when someone has put the advert, job description and person spec into chatGPT and asked it to spit out a personal statement. Easy no when shortlisting.

Similarly we will no longer do pre-interview written tasks remotely due to people using AI but then being unable to comment on the content of the task in interview. All tasks if we use them in future will be done in person!

Thank you for the oversimplification. I'm sure some will find it useful, even if it misleads them.

Its a nightmare now. I screen cvs and look for specific work experience or qualifications or employers, depending on the role.
Then I do a short screening call to edit out all the people who use AI tools to cover the fact they can't string a sentence together. And all the big recruitment platforms have built in AI tools which make things worse.
AI for me means that I can't trust a CV, applications form or cover letter at all so it just increases the workload. I now run basic skills tests in office as you can't trust anything done online anymore.

It's a problem where applications close early after a set number are received, say 100, because often 100 dross speculative applications are received before the good quality candidates apply.

Loads of posters seem to have misunderstood your question OP, which isn't asking for tips for applying for jobs, rather a musing that if everyone is using AI, and therefore all sound amazing, how do recruiters decide who to interview.

We manually screen our CVs at my work, and I'd say at least 50% of what we get are absolute dross. Appalling spelling, completely different job title in the covering letter - I assume they are generally people ticking the "applied for a job" box to get their job seekers allowance tbh. Def no AI used on them. For the rest, rhey might sue AI, might not - but I mostly look at experience, so to be honest the fluffy words around it are irrelevant - have they worked in relevant industries/done relevant roles - do they list skills that match the job requirements. So I don't think AI matters for that really. I don't see it as that different to using a spellcheck. It should just be helping you to describe your experience, which either is or isn't what is needed for the job.