AI for job applications: support or self-sabotage?

One of the most pressing questions of the year: should you use AI for job applications? If yes, how do you do it in a way that you don’t sound like everyone else that uses the same tools?

I love using AI in so many ways, but does your Siri also completely ignore you when summoned by name, only to perk up when you’re apologising to someone else mid conversation? The most frustrating bit? It only serves to remind me how often I pointlessly slip ‘sorry’ into my day-to-day communication.

Anyway, getting back to AI for job applications. It’s getting harder and harder to ignore its presence, but why should we? It can be such a powerful tool if used for good and used well.

Writing with AI pros and cons

Having something or someone look over your work and provide constructive criticism can be such a help, especially if you’re cursed to forget simple words as they reach the tip of your tongue, or if your brain gets too busy with ideas you end up forgetting a key element, or even if you’re second guessing the tone you’re using, but at the same time, how much of your voice are you drowning out?

You might be thinking that you can’t fail with a bit of AI to help, that your application is going to end up looking so polished and professional that it will be impossible for anyone to skim over it…but if everyone else is thinking the same thing and using the same programme to improve their words, how are you going to stand out?

As AI-generated content becomes more common, people are getting better at spotting the signs. While ChatGPT and other AI tools can produce well-structured and coherent text, there are certain clues that reveal when something was written by AI.

How to tell if something was written by AI?

You can easily tell when someone has used AI to create a social media post, a cover letter, or a job advert, and sometimes, people even use it in articles. (Do you see it? Can you tell? – You got it, I absolutely copied and pasted the paragraph above word for word!)

You might be wondering what else ChatGPT can help you with. Luckily for you, I have somewhat collaborated with the alarmingly astute programme so you have a chance to hear both sides. Before I got off track and asked rapid fire and completely irrelevant trivia to test its knowledge, ChatGPT helpfully gave me clues on how to spot AI in written copy…

ChatGPT’s top 6 reasons people get caught out using AI:

1. Overly polished or generic language
2. Repetitive phrases and patterns
3. Lack of personal experience or emotion
4. Too many facts, not enough opinion
5. Unusual or overly formal phrasing
6. Lack of small errors or typos

How to improve AI content?

Not to fear though, ChatGPT was also kind enough to provide 4 tips to ‘inject’ (ooh I do like that one) a personal touch:

1. Adding personal anecdotes or experiences
2. Include unique opinions and perspectives
3. Changing sentence structure and tone to match your style
4. Introducing small imperfections or informal writing

Which is some solid advice, but it’s missing some key details. For instance, before you introduce blemishes and informality, remember your audience. Before you include personal tales, take a moment and think about whether that particular story is going to alienate the person you are sharing it with. You might become so wrapped up in not getting caught out, you end up making an even bigger mistake.

By relying too heavily on what AI is telling you to focus on, you may miss a key area you should probably highlight on your application, and let’s be honest, if you don’t have to do the work yourself, your brain may skim over the information provided and you won’t even know what kind of organisation you’re applying to work for. Is that really a risk you want to take?

Equally, if you’re hiring and are looking to automate the process and speed it up, you won’t even know what talent you’re missing out on. You will lack that human connection and may miss important things in applications and interviews that, as a company, you usually value and look for. AI doesn’t have true abilities to feel emotions and relate to values like us (yet), so while AI can mark applications superficially, is that really how you want to grow your team?

So, should you use AI or not?

From my unique perspective, AI can be a great time-saving support system, and we cannot ignore the presence it has right now. But it is not able to identify things the same way as you. It’s not able to pick up on emotional cues, it’s not going to think outside the box like you can from personal experience. Much like every generation of phone that comes out, there will always be room for improvement.

Finally, I cannot stress enough that manners matter. I’ve not seen a lot of sci-fi movie endings (I started many but got too anxious to finish), so I don’t know what becomes of the world. But I do know that if the time ever comes where I find out, I will not regret taking the time to express my please and thanks.