Recruiters flooded with AI-generated resumes miss good candidates

Recruiters are facing a barrage of poor quality resumes and cover letters generated using AI, resulting in good quality candidates getting lost and leading to wasted time and resources for recruitment agencies and their customers.

AI has been used for some time by recruiters to assess job applications, but the democratisation of AI has meant that anyone can now generate a reasonably convincing resume using a free version of chatbots such as ChatGPT or Gemini, according to a Financial Times report.

The report cites research by consulting firm Neurosight which found that 57 percent of applicants used ChatGPT in their job applications. It also found that applicants using ChatGPT’s free version were less likely to pass psychometric tests than those using the paid version.

The trend increasingly puts the onus on recruiters to detect AI-written applications. Harvey Nash recruiter Andy Heyes told the FT that “tell-tale signs [like] American grammar”, and “bland” applications gave “an indication of whether candidates have used AI.” 

However, AI detection systems are known to be fallible and recruiters hope that interviews involving human recruiters could help pick out candidates with authentic experience.