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AI isn’t just taking over the workplace – it’s taking over the before-the-workplace, too.
Around 65% of job candidates are using AI at some point in the application process, according to the 2025 Market Trend Report from recruitment firm Career Group Companies. Of that 65%:
- 19% use it for resume writing
- 20% use it for their cover letter
- 9% use it for their headshot
- 7% use it for interview practice
- 5% use it for work samples
- 5% use it for career guidance
Jillian Lawrence, a senior vice president at Career Group Companies, says she’s seen AI use “skyrocket” in the last year.
“I do think that anyone who’s a savvy job searcher right now … it would surprise me if they’re not looking into [AI],” Lawrence tells CNBC Make It.
Yet that widespread usage isn’t universally liked – 42% of human resources managers find AI use in the application process to be unethical, according to a study from career platform Zety last year. Those concerns are heightened when AI is applied to skills assessments, where more than two-thirds of HR managers are at least somewhat concerned over its use.
Jasmine Escalera, a career expert at Zety, says those concerns are fair. “If you’re using it to enhance your skills or show off skills you don’t actually have, that’s an issue,” she tells CNBC Make It. “Baseline, you may not be able to do the job.”
Best practices for applicants
Lawrence recommends that job seekers double-check the accuracy of anything that they use AI for. Candidates should take the time to make sure that everything that AI has touched represents who they are and what they want their application to look like since AI can hallucinate, or give responses that are not always truthful.
“AI can be repetitive. It’s not always correct,” she says. “Anything that is not actually truthful … will come out in the wash if it’s not correct.”
That echoes CNBC Make It contributor Jeremy Schifeling, the author of “Career Coach GPT,” a book on the use of AI in the job process. He suggested applicants “Review, review, review” everything they use AI for in a CNBC Make It article last year.
“The last thing you want is to be sitting in a final-round interview and have your prospective boss’s boss’s boss ask you about a resume bullet the AI fabricated and you forgot to update!” he said.
Escalera also suggests that AI should be used to help tailor applications to job descriptions. That can include matching specific words to those in the job description, the use of action words, or even proofreading your work.
“You are the foundation, and AI comes in to kind of enhance that foundation, to really help it stand out,” she says.
Lawrence says to be wary of uploading personal information into AI programs, saying “It could be used beyond its intended purpose” if a data leak was to occur.
As AI use in the job application process continues to grow, one thing is clear to both Lawrence and Escalera: it’s just getting started.
“I absolutely think it will become more widespread,” Lawrence says. “It’ll be the next few years, like absolutely everybody figuring out how to best use this.”
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