Is everyone now using AI for job applications?

[june35]

I have never used AI for this purpose, but if everyone is doing it I wonder if I’ll be disadvantaged to not use it?

What puts me off is the time to put everything you need into AI, work out what you want it to do, and then edit it. I may as well just write it myself?

But if I’m missing a trick please advise!

but do you actually tell candidate's this and if not then why because in someways its just another tool the same as Grammarly etc

You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

A person reading your CV prefers if you haven't used AI but if the company is using AI to filter applications then no actual person will ever get to see your self written CV.

I recently applied for 2 jobs using similar personal statements which I wrote entirely myself. One of them didn’t need an introductory paragraph and the other did. I put the whole text into AI and asked it to write me an introduction paragraph. It did, and I was so impressed with it. It was my own material, just brought together in 30 seconds rather than 20 minutes.

thats the thing yes the results need tweaking at times, but the speed, time and you can get rewrites and rewrites etc its so much quicker overall and when its eg 5 mins with rewrites vs 1hr etc then its a good tool,

This is my worry. I’m in the CS; there are various warnings about using AI for applications. Yet recruitment use it for sifts! So if I don’t use it, I disadvantage myself, and if I do, I potentially get rejected at the point of application. I wonder how many people send in seemingly brilliant applications yet can’t keep up the performance in interviews and so waste everyone’s time. I hate it, it’s just become a way to game the system (which in the CS is already awful).

I'm currently shifting for a CS role and I'd say 80-90% of the CVs I've just reviewed have used AI. I can't discount all those applications as some of them have really good experience and examples, just worded in a way that seems to me to have used AI for help. Given how much we're encouraged to use AI in my Dept it seems a bit hypocritical to discount them all anyway!

For me, the cadence of the writing is more of a giveaway than the words themselves. Most people just don't write in such a weirdly-balanced way naturally. Also practically all of them give an example where they improved efficiency by X% and complaints by Y%, in the third or fourth para! It's easier to spot when you're revising 50+ CVs at a time too.

@ChuisEpuisee Yes, we are also encouraged to use AI in our work! Talk about mixed messages.

I think the issue is there hasn’t been much support (In my dept at least) with how to adapt to recruiting in a world with AI, so people are basically just doing it off their own personal feelings towards AI.

As I stated previously AI isn’t going anywhere, I reckon 90% ish of the people I’m recruiting are using it (senior technical roles, CS and contractors) people haven’t quite yet learned how to use it well in the main, and I would be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I just rejected an application that used AI.

The CS needs to be sending out guidance on what is an acceptable use of AI (ie not being discriminatory around identifying AI language, but ensuring there are still solid examples etc) but also looking to adapt the process, traditional applications and interviews aren’t cutting it where I am as we are having to interview so many people now most applications are ticking the CS boxes.

I write my CV first but then use co-pilot to cross check it against the job description/information on the application pack to make sure I’ve covered everything and also to give me pointers on where I may have repeated/duplicated something.

I’ve also used it to tidy up my cover letters, again I write them myself first then ask co-pilot to reduce the words or make it more succinct.

I think this is a really valuable point. The process of writing the CV, or application is excellent interview prep. I have recently noticed a real decline in interview performance and I wonder if this is part of the issue. People using AI for applications - but then not realising this misses some of the prep - and not doing it. Sometimes the value is in the process as well as the end result (ie the struggle is the point).

That’s daft - surely you want a workforce who are adept at using AI to work smarter and more efficiently?

If the AI had created an application that was a total work of fiction it would be immediately apparent at interview and you could discount them at that stage.

Interesting, as i work for the civil service and at an open meeting/forum, pre application stage someone asked about using AI for their application. They were given a firm 'no' to that.

Yes, huge amounts. They feed the job description into the chatbot to generate a tailored CV. We don’t even bother sending them a rejection email, they go straight to delete.

Yeah I think in the applicant statement it says something about AI, my last department it was that it could be used to support an application but not generate content or something to that effect. I’m not actually sure what our current one is, it’s not been communicated to us how we should treat AI in applications. That’s what I mean really, department’s need to take an official view and communicate it but it appears to be very ad hoc across HR and recruiters.

We wouldn’t be allowed to do that, are you not on CSJ?

What is CSJ? Google isn’t helping.

The application process clearly states that candidates who are suspected of using AI at any point in their application will not proceed.

My personal view is you can’t be bothered to write a CV yourself, then I can’t be bothered to read it.

I exaggerated a bit about the no rejection notification - they will see in our application portal that the application is not proceeding but they won’t get an email explaining why, which candidates rejected for other reasons usually get.

Apologies, civil service jobs. With all due respect it’s not your personal opinion that matters, it’s what your departmental policy is. But yes if your department states candidates aren’t allowed to use it that’s fine, but I highly expect that’ll change before long.

My personal view is that AI isn’t lazy, it’s adapting and streamlining. We shouldn’t be discouraging its use but ensuring it is used well and honestly. I encourage my team to use AI in their work, it’s making us more efficient which we should all be doing with tax payer’s money so I wouldn’t treat an applicant any differently. Someone using AI well would be a bonus for me.

It’s very tempting to use, but that’s mainly because doing cover letter after cover letter when you’re job hunting is exhausting, coupled with some applications which require multiple answers to long questions. I usually write it all out and then ask AI to refine it. I’m job hunting at the moment and have been for a while and wouldn’t have dreamed of using it at the start but I’m tired now and just want my experience fairly and coherently shared with potential recruiters.

We see it mostly as people covering up for the fact that their English is rubbish. Usually we would only find this out when the recruiter called them and reject then. An obvious AI CV saves us some time as we won’t bother to call.

We use AI for work (QE and SRE tasks in the software lifecycle), and actually build AI systems for our customers for specialised agentic tasks. So if an interviewee could explain to me how they built an agentic system using MCP tools and a DeepAgents harness to identify discrepancies in a secure software supply chain I would be all ears.

But they’re never going to get the chance if they don’t use their own words to make me want to interview them.

Almost all the young people I interview have used it, most to cover up their poor English and lack of understanding about the role. So it all falls apart fast at interview. I always do a short 10min call before interviews now to check for this.
Too many words is my key sign of AI use. Other claim bullet points are the give away, but I love bullet points and use them often.

Oh and yes, it is my personal opinion that matters when I’m the hiring manager. Hiring managers can generally set their own policies (in line with applicable legislation of course) in private sector.

Well that’s the thing isn’t it. Maybe your use of bullet points is making some people incorrectly dismiss what you write as AI. And maybe someone else’s natural tendency to use a few too many words is making you do the same to them.

Not really when you need to score the behaviours, if they’re literally hitting the points on what justification would you explain under scoring if challenged? Don’t get me wrong I think obviously bad use of AI is absolutely a fair reason to score low, I literally had one person copy and paste the prompt and the “would you like me to tailor this more to X” conversation the bot had given them, I happily wrote that in the feedback and dismissed them!

But I think blanket “no AI” is going to date pretty fast, competent, good candidates are using it. The government is actively encouraging the use of AI, and we will need to follow the policy of the department. I suspect recruitment will drastically change, albeit quite slowly knowing the civil service 🙄

I’ve used bullet points since graduating, my first hiring manager said to me my application was the easiest to score as it was clear and gave them what they needed. So I’ve done it ever since where applicable. I have a pretty good hit rate with applications.

We don’t “score behaviours”. There is no mechanism to be “challenged”. The recruiter does the first sift, sends me a long list, I say which ones I like, they call them back for a chat, we compile a shortlist for interview. We interview then sit down and make a decision.