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!

AI, I believe doesn’t understand transferable skills. Applied for jobs that I have done bits of the JD over the years and reworded terms on my last job. Didn’t get an interview.

Then I also believe that AI doesn’t look for dates. As one job I applied for required 2 years experience in customer service. A lad on the assessment day said he only had 8 months. If a person looked at CV, see he only had 8 months - rejected.

I had a dude use an AI assistant during an interview (video call) - it was painfully obvious. He didn't get the job because his answers, from the AI, were rubbish.

Anyone using AI in their CV and communications it's obvious you're doing it.

I'm not going to discount you for it necessarily, but I will be interviewing you a little bit harder when I notice.

I do a fair amount of recruitment - I use AI to assist with design of job specs, selection criteria, interview questions, in tray exercises.
I am more than happy to recruit people who can use AI in an intelligent way - that generally means getting it to rewrite & improve small sections, or adapting the AI output to personalise the final letter. It's generally easy to tell who has done that.
I also ask at interview about how candidates use AI

Top tip - if a cover letter starts "Dear Hiring Manager" its a dead cert that it's generated by Chat GPT and the applicant hasn't had the wit to look at the website and see the name of the HR manager or Line manager.

Who has ever seen a job tittle of Hiring Manager FFS!!

My eldest has been applying for apprentiships. They have all had several rounds in deciding who to interview. The first stage has consistently been an AI filter based on CV.

It must be AI as its almost an instant response. Normally the questions are CV type questions like qualifications and skills. Then maybe a few short 'why do you want the job' questions. The second stage has often been an online test filter. Then a video interview with AI which is only reviewed by a person if AI flags it. Then a person on the phone, then an interview.

I think some employers will find using AI at there end, encourages AI use at the employee end for those initial filters.

Her new employer told her that they can tell if AI is used.

Raises eyebrow.

Slowly.

@dontcomeatme to answer your Q, I think this comment is a good example.

AI is simply enabling what’s always happened - this is just advancement of pimping up your CV/application.

Eg previously to stand out, people would just lie - quite outrageously in some cases - just to secure that interview. But now they just dress their lies up with AI to make them sound more believable. But once you’re facing an experienced panel, you will get caught out by those dreaded ‘probing’ Qs as to whether your examples are genuine or not and if you do understand the role and will be competent in it.

So, in summary, this isn’t anything new for employers. AI just helps to polish up your examples and those with the most tailored examples/aligned job histories will get selected for interview.

If it is an oversimplification, then - like Newton - it's one that works in all cases that aren't near light speed.

And we know Einstein is wrong too.

AI, I believe doesn’t understand

If you stop there, you are 100% correct.

feed in a job description, and AI will write you an excellent cover letter - it will 'give' you all the required qualifications - even if you don;t have them😂

As PP said it’s fine to use AI to finesse an application that includes real experience but I see more and more AI applications where it’s like a buzzword bingo… sounds impressive on first read but when you read again there’s a lack of evidence. It’s so frustrating, we get a lot of applications like this and they take time to sift out!

The brain works by pattern matching too, but science still doesn't know exactly how it works.

As far as I can tell the limits of AI mostly centre around its lack of autonomy - it's reactive, not proactive. So, a human would see on a CV that there's a gap in employment, and the brain would automatically generate new thoughts, queries, conclusions based on that gap, which may or may not affect the shortlisting outcome. Unless AI has been asked to look for gaps, it won't notice or flag it for human review.

Similarly, there are token limits for each prompt, so if you try and get AI to look for too much at once or try and instigate an IFTTT-type review, then it will cap the depth of its answer, in favour of the breadth, which is where hallucinations and oversights happen.

My initial post was addressing the PP's misinformation that AI for CV review was simply 'keyword matching', akin to trying to rank on Google in 2005. It is not.

We don’t accept CVs - on the application form I look first at qualifications and previous experience - then we shortlist based on job spec, some AI use is obvious but not always
Next we do an informal teams chat to narrow field
Successful people are then invited to a group interview with a variety of tasks including a hand written one
Finally the best few get a panel interview
This system has worked well for us over the past 5-6 years

DH has just said that he looks at people's LinkedIn. Quite obvious when someone has manipulated or overstated their experience to match a job. Be aware. Like a pp, he also does quick screening phone calls to weed out the chancers.

We use AI at work, and I've used it in my CV. It's like anything, if you don't use it properly, it's shit and reflects poorly. You still need to be able to think and have a brain with it - hence Microsoft call it copilot aka your assistant. The prompts you use are important, and you should tailor it to your audience i.e. no point putting in lots of American style jargon and language if you're pitching for a UK / EU company

I used it on my own CV to help shorten sentences and be less passive. We don't use automated screening at work except to weed out candidates who very obviously don't have the right experience i.e. job spec asks for at least 10 years experience, and someone has 1.

When I review CVs I basically look at the position someone has done, where they've worked (relevant for our industry) and whether they've actually done / been responsible for the sort of tasks we're looking for, instead of just being part of a team who does that thing.

For the last 3 roles we've hired for, I've had upwards of 250+ applicants. I can review a CV in less than 1 min and decide whether we want to put them through to the next stage. At interview, you can quickly tell whether someone's experience is over inflated.

We still manually sift and shortlist. Recently had 160+ applications for an entry-level role, we have three vacancies to fill. If the applicant hasn't read the basic info such as "needs to live in X town" then that's immediately on the no pile. Likewise if you've just submitted a CV and not answered the person spec.
That's about a third dealt with and then we do a deeper read, AI does stick out if the candidates haven't gone back to edit and improve what AI spat out. I'm looking for examples of time management or good team work or communication skills. If the application doesn't give a solid example of team working that lines up with the work history it's a no go. Our role profiles and person specs are pretty generic Anderson for entry-level we are looking for transferrable skills rather than specific experience. I don't think I've ever shortlisted someone even before AI who didn't give specific examples of when they had worked to competing deadlines and I'm not going to start now just because an application has all the keywords but no examples of when the person actually did/was all of those things. It's time consuming but ultimately saves me interviewing people who haven't got the skills.

I warn you that employers are getting wise to AI responses and run questions through AI to help identify those who may be using it.

I think it depends how you use AI. If you put in the job spec and ask it to create ideal answers, cover letter or CV then anyone with half a brain can spot this a mile off and you just undermine yourself.

If you put in the job spec and your CV and ask AI to review your CV against the job spec and look for weak points and address those then you are using it as a tool. Equally if you put in job spec, company values and other information and ask it to ask you interview questions and mark those against what they are looking for and identify gaps then you will do well.

For me, AI is great for candidates in helping them to prepare- but only if they use it properly. Asking it for perfect answers is lazy, doesn't help develop their own thinking and is easily identifiable.

I did recruitment recently (for a digital role). Over 80% of applicants had used AI in their applications. Only 1 added value to their application with the AI. All the AI responses were very similar in structure, and just described the individuals skills/experience compared to the ask. However the one that had used it well had clearly gone back in to the results and annotated them with specific examples that supported each piece of evidence. Using AI niaively just doesn’t make a positive difference to the application.

I do find that using AI to prepare for potential questions can help people to be ready for interviews. I use it myself asking chatGPT what type of questions might be asked for this job description, it came back with 50-100 potential questions and working through the thinking associated with these helped me to feel better prepared and the working through the thinking processes helped me to feel more dynamic in the interview itself.

It's all about the edit.

Just get ChatGPT to read all the applications and pick the top 5 😁

Hopefully all the cheaters using AI at the early stages will get caught out at the later stages. Unfortunately it does mean that some very good honest people don't get past the first round.

I’m still using an agency for my recruitment. I have a good relationship with my preferred recruiter, he shortlists based on my preferences and only sends me good candidates. He sent 6 CVs for my current opening with a précis of each anpplicant and why he’s shortlisted them.

Every one is suitable for interview.

I think that AI is a great tool but good recruiters are worth their weight in gold.

Do you think AI is making companies employ the wrong people? Why would a job be readvertised after 3-4 months?

Screening calls basically. CVS aren’t worth much anymore because so many people have used AI which basically matches the content to the job description even if the candidate doesn’t actually have that experience. So it’s just a page full of exaggeration or outright lies.

I usually have a couple of very specific technical questions that require the candidate to have experience of doing that task in order to answer and I ask them via a video call or in person so I can see how they respond, whether they are looking at another screen for answers and so on. It’s a pain in the ass,

No more than before. Only faster and cheaper 😀

People forget when recruiting that they are only every going to net the tiniest of tiny proportions of available candidates as a starting point.