We’re all familiar with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, but perhaps a bit less with its counterpart, Claude. This AI assistant is also capable of generating text on demand, such as cover letters and resumes.
Ironically, the company that developed it, Anthropic, requires its future recruits to write their resumes without the help of artificial intelligence. Indeed, candidates applying for one of the US startup’s many job offers are advised against using this technology.
“While we encourage people to use AI systems to help them work faster and more effectively, please do not use AI assistants during the application process. We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills,” reads a job posting on the firm’s website.
While this may come as a surprise from one of OpenAI’s competitors, it does reflect recruiters’ mistrust of AI-enhanced applications. According to a CV Genius survey, 80% of hiring managers have a negative perception of the use of AI to draft resumes and cover letters.
Among them, 57% say they are less inclined to hire a candidate who uses this technology, some even going so far as to make it a criterion for rejection.
Why this reluctance? Generative AI frequently produces factual errors, or even completely invents information. This complicates the work of HR professionals, who then have to step up their processes for checking applications.
Such errors can also arouse the suspicion of employers, who may see them as a sign of a candidate’s lack of conscientiousness or attention to detail.
Furthermore, although AI tools are becoming increasingly interactive and therefore “sociable”, they still suffer from a slight but tenacious lack of personality. The resumes they generate tend to be neutral and standardised, reducing the candidate’s chances of attracting the attention of recruiters and securing an interview.
“While AI-generated resumes can be efficient in initial screenings, they don’t always capture the candidate’s full essence. AI may not fully capture the candidate’s personality or the nuances of their career journey.
“Traditional resumes, on the other hand, tend to offer a more holistic view, including their communication style and personal touch,” Matthew Warzel, president of MJW Careers, told Forbes.
Yet jobseekers are not always aware of the limitations of using AI in their applications. Indeed, 35% of French people surveyed about AI and employment say they use resume-creation software to optimise the presentation of their job applications.
Others use interactive chatbots to get advice on job interviews or answers to administrative questions. As such, the use of AI by candidates goes far beyond simply writing resumes.
Job applicants are not the only ones to exploit the many possibilities of AI. Despite the many ethical issues raised by this technology, particularly in terms of algorithmic bias and discrimination, recruiters are increasingly making use of it – whether for sorting applications, analysing skills, or reorganising companies internally.
Meanwhile, LinkedIn is reportedly testing a new job-search tool based on a bespoke language model, according to Wired. This tool would analyse huge volumes of data to help job applicants find the right job.
The company believes AI could help its users discover jobs they might otherwise have missed with a conventional search. “The reality is, you don’t find your dream job by checking a set of keywords,” LinkedIn CEO Ryan Roslansky told the US media outlet.
This new tool could, he believes, enable candidates to “find relevant jobs they never even knew to search for”.