Why using AI to write your CV could be a bad idea

Jobseekers are increasingly using artificial intelligence to apply for jobs – but leaving AI in charge of your applications could be a hindrance to securing new roles, new research suggests.

Applicants may use AI to fill out forms, write cover letters and answer initial questions, especially if they are applying to multiple organisations.

But one new experiment has suggested this might not be the best use of your time – and could even see you miss out on the role you really wanted.

Job resource site Kickresume set up a test to find the best and worst-performing applications for a series of sales and marketing roles, comparing AI-written CVs to those entirely created by people.

The human-written CV was the most successful, receiving a positive response for almost a third of the 200 applications (31 per cent).

At the other end of the scale, AI-only CVs were the worst performers, with just one in ten (10 per cent) receiving a positive initial response.

However, there was a notable boost (18 per cent) when people tailored the AI-written CVs afterwards.

Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume, said: “While the strongest CV was human-written, a little tailoring of your AI-written CV to fit the job description can boost its performance significantly. In our test, tailoring nearly doubled the AI resume’s response rate.

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“Pulling in the language from the posting shows recruiters and hiring managers you’re a genuine fit for the role and helps your CV read cleanly to an applicant tracking system along the way.”

The research offers an eye-opening consideration for jobseekers who are perhaps feeling the strain from repeat applying and wondering if mass-sends outs, written automatically, are a better scatter-gun approach.

There was no additional work produced, such as a cover letter for example, and the single-sector applications therefore might not have seen the same results across different employment areas.

But it serves as a reminder all the same that recruiters and employers want to see differentiation between applicants and that the jobseeker will always know their strengths and personality better than an AI model writing a CV for them.

“It was really interesting carrying out this experiment, and we hope it inspires people to keep pushing with their job search and experimenting with their own CVs,” Mr Duris concluded.