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Before he started using artificial intelligence, Mitch Reiss says it took about three hours to craft a well-tailored cover letter and resume. Now it takes about 30 minutes to produce even stronger application materials.
“It’s a game changer,” he says. “It enables me to do more applications in a shorter amount of time.”
The 37-year-old has been on the job hunt for about a year after a career move to the corporate world from community management didn’t pan out. Now he’s looking for office management or coordinator and employee experience roles in a challenging job market.
“Writing cover letters wouldn’t be my strongest skill,” Mr. Reiss says. “[AI] is helping me get past that writer’s block, get the application out and analyze the company a bit deeper.”
Stress Test podcast: Thanks to AI, your resume is perfect. So is everyone else’s
He says AI tools help him craft and edit cover letters, research prospective employers and prep for interviews by suggesting likely questions and strong replies that match his experience.
“The biggest thing I would say it helps with is finding subtleties in my current resume, analyzing the job posting and offering suggestions for changing lines to mimic the language in the job postings,” he says. “Employers are using [AI] to filter out resumes quicker and if I put in an application without the right keyword – even if I’m fully qualified for it – it might get tossed out.”
AI is making everyone look better on paper
The job market has long been a technology arms race between employers and applicants, with each adding the latest tools to their arsenal to gain an edge. The recent explosion in AI-generated applications, however, represents a more foundational shift, as employers contend with a higher volume of polished applications and candidates struggle to stand out in a more competitive field.
“There’s always been this back and forth where candidates and employers try to out-optimize each other, but now AI is making everyone look better on paper,” says Resume Genius career expert Eva Chan. “Recruiters are starting to trust resumes less at face value.”
In a recent Resume Genius survey of 1,000 American hiring managers, 77 per cent said many of the resumes they receive appear to be AI-generated and nearly the same proportion said overall resume quality has increased.
“Most recruiters don’t care if you’ve used AI. At this point, it’s expected,” Ms. Chan says. “No one is sitting there trying to catch job seekers using ChatGPT. What they do care about is whether the resume reads as untrustworthy.”
AI is adding resume volume for recruiters to process
Ironically, the technology billed as a time saver for both recruiters and candidates has had the opposite effect. While AI can help candidates craft more applications in less time, the added volume has slowed the hiring process overall.
In a recent survey of 1,500 Canadian hiring managers conducted by recruiting firm Robert Half, 61 per cent said AI-generated resumes are slowing the hiring process, 65 per cent said they’re creating challenges for their organization and 89 per cent said it has increased workloads.
“AI is flooding the market right now with resumes that mirror the job description,” says Robert Half Canada’s Ottawa-based metro market director, Sandra Lavoy.
“In some cases, we’re seeing generative AI tools fabricating or embellishing work history and skills.”
While the technology is helping hiring managers sift through applications faster, Ms. Lavoy says the savings is often being reinvested in verifying credentials.
“There’s a lot more validation that has to happen now,” she says.
Those challenges are burdening already resource-strapped hiring teams while creating more competition for candidates in an already challenging job market, according to Matt Poepsel, vice-president at talent optimization platform The Predictive Index.
“The volume [of applications] is as high as it’s ever been because the job market is what it is, and every candidate looks like the perfect candidate, so the noise just shot through the roof and the signal that I was trying so hard to find is even more elusive,” he says.
How to wade through AI-driven resume stacks
One potential solution to the volume issue is adding what Mr. Poepsel says calls an “interstitial step” designed to weed out applicants who are less likely to be a strong cultural fit.
“All that means is that if we need somebody to be dominant and assertive and commanding, because of the nature of the work, we’re going to ask them, ‘tell me about the time when you did these things,’ because it’s harder for AI to do that based on your own life inventory,” he says. “That raises the stakes and cuts out a lot of that noise, because a lot of candidates will bow out.”
The extra step is designed to lower applicant volumes while measuring behavioural fit; a primary indicator of candidate success and something resumes and cover letters – whether generated by humans or AI – rarely communicate effectively.
“I would go back to first principles, which is working backward from behavioural fit,” Mr. Poepsel says. “That, to me, is better than trying to do things like banning AI use, which is just impractical at this point.”