I love how you recommend many things that are just good for the candidate. The challenge I have is that the employers have been using AI in horrific ways which just muddy up the water. It's funny because in all my interviews where I laid out my knowledge of the company it became painfully obvious I knew more about their company than my interviewers and it backfired so....
I did write up a while ago the problems with the recruiting / hiring process and how the use of AI creates challenges:
That's a solid look at the flip side of the coin. And I agree - this approach risks a "race to the bottom" where screening is increasingly automated while candidates turn to automated "spam 1000 companies in one click" tools as well.
That's why I specifically chose to focus on the "How can AI actually make you better" angle rather than "How can you outsource job seeking to AI." As I see it, job seekers can't have much impact on what screening tools and procedures the employers use. But they can choose to use AI in a way that helps them upskill, practice, and invest in themselves so that they're better positioned to take on any opportunities that come up.
I haven't been in the shoes of someone on the hunt for a job in a long time, but I am very confident that my approach would absolutely leverage many of these tools. Like the LLM would be my copilot through the entire process, I think.
We're a bit more plugged in than most, I think, so we have a pretty realistic expectation of what you'll get when you ask for something from an LLM, right?
My observations about using AI for resume and cover letter part of the hiring process:
The widespread adoption of AI tools in job hunting has created an interesting situation. When thousands of candidates leverage the same AI platforms (most of the major models are not only equally good but also provide very similar output as the training data is the same) to craft their cover letters and resumes, I see a convergence in writing styles, highlighted skills (in some cases, where a person may not even have the skill), and presentation formats. Some applicants have even automated the whole process. This homogenization is particularly problematic because recruiters themselves are increasingly deploying AI to filter through the flood of applications.
The result is a somewhat artificial ecosystem where AI systems screen AI-generated applications, potentially reducing the authentic human elements that make candidates unique. This technological arms race has reinforced the age-old truth of job hunting: having a personal connection or referral within the target company often proves more valuable than a perfectly crafted application. The situation raises questions about whether AI tools truly democratize the job search process or create a more sophisticated version of the same challenges job seekers have always faced.
Couldn't agree more. We see this Ouroboros situation with other professional features like the "Collaborative Articles" on LinkedIn, where the initial questions are clearly AI-generated, and the vast majority of replies are near-carbon-copies of each other that scream "ChatGPT."
That's why, while I'm definitely an AI enthusiast, I go out of my way to recommend using AI as a sparring partner to help you think better rather than a filler-content-generation machine.
I'm still hopeful that we'll eventually get past this stage of cookie-cutter, AI-generated everything and start using AI in a more meaningful way.
I love how you recommend many things that are just good for the candidate. The challenge I have is that the employers have been using AI in horrific ways which just muddy up the water. It's funny because in all my interviews where I laid out my knowledge of the company it became painfully obvious I knew more about their company than my interviewers and it backfired so....
I did write up a while ago the problems with the recruiting / hiring process and how the use of AI creates challenges:
https://www.polymathicbeing.com/p/resume-inflation-playing-the-game
That's a solid look at the flip side of the coin. And I agree - this approach risks a "race to the bottom" where screening is increasingly automated while candidates turn to automated "spam 1000 companies in one click" tools as well.
That's why I specifically chose to focus on the "How can AI actually make you better" angle rather than "How can you outsource job seeking to AI." As I see it, job seekers can't have much impact on what screening tools and procedures the employers use. But they can choose to use AI in a way that helps them upskill, practice, and invest in themselves so that they're better positioned to take on any opportunities that come up.
Yeah, I really appreciated your focus as most do the opposite. It was a breath of fresh air!
I haven't been in the shoes of someone on the hunt for a job in a long time, but I am very confident that my approach would absolutely leverage many of these tools. Like the LLM would be my copilot through the entire process, I think.
Same, but it intuitively makes sense to me to want to use AI to help me improve my own chances rather than be my doppelganger.
We're a bit more plugged in than most, I think, so we have a pretty realistic expectation of what you'll get when you ask for something from an LLM, right?
Excellent post!
My observations about using AI for resume and cover letter part of the hiring process:
The widespread adoption of AI tools in job hunting has created an interesting situation. When thousands of candidates leverage the same AI platforms (most of the major models are not only equally good but also provide very similar output as the training data is the same) to craft their cover letters and resumes, I see a convergence in writing styles, highlighted skills (in some cases, where a person may not even have the skill), and presentation formats. Some applicants have even automated the whole process. This homogenization is particularly problematic because recruiters themselves are increasingly deploying AI to filter through the flood of applications.
The result is a somewhat artificial ecosystem where AI systems screen AI-generated applications, potentially reducing the authentic human elements that make candidates unique. This technological arms race has reinforced the age-old truth of job hunting: having a personal connection or referral within the target company often proves more valuable than a perfectly crafted application. The situation raises questions about whether AI tools truly democratize the job search process or create a more sophisticated version of the same challenges job seekers have always faced.
Couldn't agree more. We see this Ouroboros situation with other professional features like the "Collaborative Articles" on LinkedIn, where the initial questions are clearly AI-generated, and the vast majority of replies are near-carbon-copies of each other that scream "ChatGPT."
That's why, while I'm definitely an AI enthusiast, I go out of my way to recommend using AI as a sparring partner to help you think better rather than a filler-content-generation machine.
I'm still hopeful that we'll eventually get past this stage of cookie-cutter, AI-generated everything and start using AI in a more meaningful way.