AI is ruining job seeking

[notedbiscuits]

Many companies scan CVs using AI software and it picks up keywords/buzz phrases.

From my experience, AI does not understand transferrable skills. As I have applied for jobs which I have done elements of the job in last job and previous ones. Get rejected.

Seen job listings back in Nov/Dec which are now listed now. Did they get the wrong staff from AI? Also companies need to look at staff turnover since the introduction of AI in recruitment. If more new starters leave since AI, then these companies should ditch AI and use human eyes instead.

The thing is been told not to use AI in creating CVs as it looks false and doesn't flow. Yet companies scan CVs with AI.

On similar lines but my DS got rejected from his dream job because of some stupid psychometric game that meant that he wasn’t suitable. Never mind he has all the qualifications and associated
work experience needed. He had to line up arrows and wiggly lines. Absolutely nothing to do with the job at all

Can you write all the buzzwords at the end of your CV in a white colour font? ie invisible to anybody reading it but there to get picked up by the AI.

It will show good initiative 😁

If AI picks up buzz words them used them!

CV is for our king your experince and skills - so GCSEs Excel Word Driving licence

Us the job description for the letter - I have experince in communication staff management etc

seems to me you know the rules but not how to play

When I was made redundant, 5 years ago I was advised to do this. Such a clever idea!

This is going to get worse as AI takes over from HR roles.

Agree with this. Just reword CV using their buzzwords and phrasing your transferable skills to exactly match what they are seeking. You need to get to interview stage with a human. You know how to get past the bot so do it.

A lot of people make the mistake of having ‘a CV’. It’s important to tailor your CV to the role you’re applying for. Different companies will prioritise different aspects of a role & it’s always been the case that these elements should be highlighted by pulling them to the top.

Also, historically people would miss out on roles due to poor formatting or lazy managers not reading the whole CV. With AI it doesn’t matter if you tell them you’re proficient in X at the top or bottom, if it’s key to the role it’s picked up.

Hiring people isn’t just about selecting someone qualified. It’s about making sure their personality will fit within the team, and their views are aligned with the company. And ensuring the skills they bring, complement those already in the team. These tests are a good way to understand someone’s natural tendencies.

Take the advert or job spec and then feed it into ChatGPT or DeepSeek and then feed your CV in and tell it to tweak your CV to suit the job spec. Obviously, read and edit yourself afterwards in case it's added something you haven't experience in. It should take a matter of minutes.

If the company is using AI to filter applications, there's a good chance they'll be using AI detectors on the applications themselves, and penalise those applicants.

I'm aware of the double standard, but job hunting has never been fair or logical.

The last few roles I hired for were swamped with AI written CVs. When the person appears for an interview and can't barely string a sentence together, it all falls apart.

I guess it depends on your sector but from what I'm seeing, it's a myth that ATS or AI are solely responsible for shortlisting. ATS are used to an extent but CVs are being looked at by humans and every recruiter I've spoken to has said the same. Actual people are shortlisting.

My company sells AI solutions but you can sure as hell bet we use humans to review CVs. AI can do a lot but there’s also a vast swathe that it cannot do properly yet.

As a PP said, it becomes obvious when it all falls apart at interview and the person can’t actually string a sentence together about something they were an apparent ‘expert’ in and that was the case when we tried using AI screening methods

Jesus wept this is how people did SEO in the 90s - how are we back here 😭

Ok....

ATS systems have been widely used for 20 years.

AI still isn't used widely... it's still the same machine learning algorithms that have been used for a while now (which incidentally means they're getting better because... it's machine learning)

The issue is there's a contraction in the white collar job market as companies now look to minimise human employees (Google the era of humanless revenue generation).

So there's a lot more competition for jobs. Which makes it a lot harder to get an interview.

No one appoints using AI (or ML). Decisions are made by teams of humans as has always been the case. So your idea that people are making bad hires because of AI doesn't stand up. Machines help with the initial sift. They don't hire.

If you need to rewrite your CV there's lots of advice on this

Also spare a thought for us recruiters having to sift through all the bloody AI generated applications where people have literally just cut and pasted chat gpt and we get 100s of them all the same.
We don't use AI to screen but I wish we did
Unfortunately it's hurting both candidates and hiring companies

I used AI to help with a job application. Not to write it, I wrote it and gave it all my genuine skills and experience then ran it through Chat GPT and asked it to checkout met all aspects of the person spec. I was amazed at how helpful it was - and I got the job.

Think it's most likely you didn't explain how the transferable skills were relevant than AI didn't understand them.

I was pretty much going to write this word for word. We don't use AI at all and all CVs/cover letters are reviewed by a human but we have to wade through so much AI-generated crap.

Many companies scan CVs using AI software and it picks up keywords/buzz phrases.

Humans reviewing applications do this too. They'll be looking to see that all elements of the person spec are included. You need to put their "buzz words" in your application however you think it will be reviewed and if you're using transferable skills you need to explain why they fit the criteria, using their terminology.

The bulk of the text will be your own and so will your experience and qualifications so it would be a pretty useless system if it filtered to that extent - you wouldn't have any applicants.

Yep, it's frustrating as hell!

I read all applications personally for my current job opening and it's obvious when written by AI.

Just edit it FFS!

I've just posted about this on another thread yesterday:

We've seen threads with (alleged) HR professionals claiming, "why wouldn't we screen with AI? It makes our job easier!" then they're also complaining, "why are all the CVs these days written with AI?"

They're not making the connection that the AI screening tool is binning more of the CVs written by humans (which are the ones the HR professionals actually want) and leaving them with more of the CVs written by AI (which they don't want). This is one reason (out of several) that it's so hard to find a job and a good candidate right now. People are getting desperate and blanket-applying with the same CV and that's no good as a tactic anymore, you need to rewrite every CV specifically to each new job application (and definitely with the cover letter).

I ran my CV through one of these AI CV checkers and was shocked at how poor it was compared to the AI that I work with daily. It couldn't tell that different verb conjugations were the same word, so it said I didn't match job descriptions when I actually did and any human would have seen that straight away, because, for example, I stated I had "organisational skills" and the job description stated "must be organised", and in another case I stated I had experience with "data analysis" and the job description wanted "data analsyis" (which was a clear mistake but the AI just blindly decided my word didn't match the word in the job description and told me I wasn't suitable for this job).

It's obviously a terrible AI design but this is one of the most popular AI CV screening tools on the market; on their website they had a scrolling list of major companies that use them. It also had no option for British English so threw up a load of typos that were not typos.

If you don't 100% match the job, it throws up that you're not a match and highlights a laundry list of your "missing skills" even if they're actually there but in a different verb form or spelling.

This leaves a dilemma, do I fix the CV for AI then risk a human throwing it out because it now looks like it's written by AI, or do I leave it as is and hope any given company doesn't screen their job applications with AI? Because not all companies are screening this way and you don't know who's doing it until you apply (usually).

Just bunging a load of keywords in doesn't work anymore (not sure it was ever the best plan) for the reasons above.

From speaking to a few people who have sifted applications recently it's easy to spot the AI buzzwords filled one and filter tgem out. If the application is just 'good sounding sentences' but very little explanation of tasks and success to back it up, that application is very unlikely to get through. The advice I have been given is to use AI to shape a draft or structure if I want to but then rewrite it to make sure it is in a human voice and not just buzzwords. So you need to write 'working at pace' if that is mentioned in the job description but then give an example.

This is the Civil Service though, I have no experience of applying elsewhere.

The thing is, you might not be using AI but enough companies are that some people are only getting interviews from their AI-screened, AI-written CV. So they think they're being rewarded for using AI. So they'll keep doing it.

I know I'm being unrealistic but I wish job openings would specify if they use AI screening tools or not because I'd much rather apply to an actual human with my human-written CV.

AI is also ruining hiring. Huge percentages of applicants are submitting an AI generated CVs and answers, and using it to "help" in virtual interviews and tests... it makes it so hard to differentiate good and bad candidates now, as they all appear the same.