I have distinct memories of looking for jobs in college. Every day after my morning classes and afternoon internship, I would open up my computer and look for jobs. At the time, Monster.com was the new technology. Yes, I am ‘beginning of Monster.com’ years old. I thought it was amazing to find all of these jobs at a click after hearing the horror stories from friends and family about mailing, faxing, and delivering resumes. Now I could search for a job in DC all the way from Pennsylvania. 

However, I was spending a ton of time tailoring every resume based on anyone’s advice. I just wanted a job, but no one I looked to for advice agreed on the best way to stand out with my application. My Mom was in the military so the last time she created a resume was before anyone called her Mom. My friends all had slightly different templates and typos, not exactly reliable sources. My mentors told me things like, “resumes aren’t that important, just focus on the cover letter.” I really didn’t know who to listen to. 

Fast forward many years and job boards later, I’m yet another person with a perspective on the job search. But today, candidates have more access to information and automation to help with their job search than I did. They don’t have to rely on a counselor or parent for career advice - they have the whole internet. Plus, now there are AI tools that speed up the process. 

The War (And Wins) of AI Tools In Job Search

We are in the automation age of job search. There are tools that will help you do just about anything for your application from rewriting your résumé, to summarizing job postings, and even coaching you on how to answer “What’s your biggest weakness?” The system is simple. Upload the job post and the thing you want to optimize - the resume, the interview answer - and the tool will do the work. 

The adoption of these systems is really high and only increasing in younger generations. A 2024 ResumeBuilder survey found that 46% of job seekers said they used ChatGPT to write their résumés or cover letters. Among Gen Z, it jumps even higher, with nearly 60% reporting they’ve handed the wheel to AI at some point in their application process. But does it help? 

Not according to recruiters. See, as much as people want to talk about robots reading resumes - most teams aren’t there yet because they’re scared of liability. So now, already overwhelmed recruiters are manually reviewing a thousand resumes, not a hundred. Even worse? More than half of those are too similar to distinguish because people used the same tools. That formula adds up to longer time to fill, more ghosting, and the sensation that we’re all playing a numbers game no one can win. 

Addressing Applicant Overload With AI

I have to admit, it feels a little like the spiderman meme where there’s two characters and they’re pointing a finger at each other. Recruiters are blaming job seekers for a bad candidate experience saying, “It wouldn’t take so long if we didn’t have all these applicants!” Alternatively, the job seekers are putting the blame back at the recruiters for all the years of ghosting them. People wouldn’t mind spending more time on applications if they thought recruiters actually read them. 

It opens the door for both sides to feel like they need to game the system, but this shouldn’t be a game. Hiring and choosing a job are life altering decisions. We shouldn’t be trying to add “gotcha” questions or sneaky one-liners about adding a picture of your dog to the resume to slow down AI. So how do you manage the high volume without adding headaches? There are a few approaches I’ve seen work. 

1. Be explicit about AI in the job post. This is the easiest answer, no budget needed. Update your job posts with clear instructions to tell people not to use AI. Be honest about why it may be harmful to their application. Will this stop them? Maybe not, but it creates a reason for you to use if you need to explain why you selected all of the resumes that are the same and reject them. 
2. Add hidden fields. Don’t test the people, test the bot. I don’t recommend adding things like “say pineapple so I know you’re not a bot.” Instead, add hidden form fields visible only to bots. If that field is filled out, you know it’s a bot. Sort and reject accordingly. 
3. Use a conversational recruiting agent. Change the path with an AI conversational recruiting agent. The standard search and apply is still the Monster.com era of job search. Instead, give visitors personalized attention via job recommendations, an integrated application process, and the option to schedule an interview. Shoutout to our sponsor Joveo and their recruitment marketing agents.
4. Make video self-screening a part of the conversational application flow. One note here: not everyone thrives on video. This shouldn’t be the only part of the application. 

In my research for this post, a few people also suggested behavior analysis. These analytics and bot-detection services (like Cloudflare or DataDome) monitor patterns like rapid submissions. They also try to grade if something is AI or not and have been proven to be unreliable in their detection ability. I don’t recommend them. Considering AI was trained on human writing, I can almost guarantee it is going to generate some false positives. I’ve seen enough of those arguments on LinkedIn already. 

Next Week 

In the final post of our series, I’m going to sit down with Joveo’s Founder and CEO Kshitij Jain to hear his bold predictions and talk a little bit about what recruitment marketing teams should expect as we evolve over the next five years. How will the industry change? What opportunities are we missing out on now? Be sure to subscribe to get those answers and more next week. 

Meet My Series Sponsor

Joveo is a global leader in AI-led, high-performance recruitment marketing. The platform uses AI and data to make your recruitment marketing the best it can be. With Joveo, employers, staffing agencies, and RPOs have access to AI-powered (programmatic) job advertising, talent engagement, career sites, conversational recruiting, and unified analytics. As a result, they can reach more candidates globally, engage them effectively, get better hiring outcomes, and maximize efficiency and ROI.

More Posts In This Series:

• Stuck In AI Pilot Mode? Try This
• Where Are You On The AI Maturity Model For Talent Acquisition?
• What’s Next For Recruitment Marketing in the Age of AI?