If you think you can use ChatGPT to gain an advantage in your job search, you may be shooting yourself in the foot.
As companies use AI to automatically filter out resumes, job seekers are trying to keep up and applying with chatbot-generated applications, and employers are starting to take notice.
Jakob Knutzen, co-founder and CEO of video collaboration platform Butter, said he received about 450 applications for a product designer position, but told Business Insider that he felt the form's three questions, written in ChatGPT, were being used enough.
“The language was incredibly similar and used a lot of phrases you would never imagine people would use,” he said.
After Knutzen posted his concerns on LinkedIn, other employers reported seeing a similar trend of a surge in job applications submitted by AI.
Christina Holman, head of demand generation at cybersecurity risk management company Outpost24, said she recently received more than 250 applications for two open positions.
She told Insider that she estimates that 45% of unsolicited cover letters are generated by AI.
“I went on ChatGPT, posted our live job ad, and asked for a cover letter,” Holman told Insider, “and they sent me back a template that was pretty much the same one I'd received so many times.”
She said that while it doesn't necessarily eliminate a candidate from consideration, if there was a choice between an application that used a ChatGPT-generated cover letter and a similar application that didn't, the latter would likely be selected.
“In the end, it turned out that it didn't do anything,” she said. “It would have been better not to have it on at all.”
Holman, who has 10 years of experience in recruiting, said she has seen a noticeable increase in the use of AI for candidate processing over the past year or two.
As ChatGPT and other AI tools become more accessible and popular, this number is likely to continue to rise.
According to a 2023 survey by iCIMS, 47% of college seniors are interested in using ChatGPT or other AI bots to help them write their resumes and cover letters, and 25% of Gen Z surveyed said they already do so.
Some recruiters are considering creating “AI-enabled” questions, such as requiring applicants to watch an introductory video about Loom. Others are baiting chatbots by sneaking hidden instructions about the LLM into applicants' answers.
Knutzen said he considered using video or other questions to reduce the likelihood of AI-based answers, but abandoned the idea over concerns that the “barrier to entry would be too high.”
However, some comments on Knutzen's post said job seekers were simply trying to put themselves on an equal footing with recruiters, especially in a tough job market.
One person wrote: “What do companies expect from applicants when they use automated systems to decide who deserves an interview?”
According to a 2023 survey by Jobscan, over 97% of Fortune 500 companies use automated recruiting systems.
“I think there's more frustration with the whole application process,” Knutzen said. “I don't feel like companies are respecting the process for applicants.”
Knutzen, who says his company doesn't use an ATS, points out that many companies tend to ignore applicants or automatically send rejection notices, which can discourage job seekers.
“If you don't get much response to your application, you start to think that your application isn't important,” he says. “If the company doesn't think it's important, why should I think it's important?”
But Knutzen stresses that the issue isn’t necessarily with the use of AI, but rather with using it “as a writer, not as an editor.”
Holman said he “fully expects” people to use AI to save time when searching for jobs and applying, but warned candidates not to rely on it blindly.
“The problem isn't the use of AI, it's the lack of customization that comes with it,” Holman said. “I think if you're going to use AI, you need to be really intentional about it.”
She said applicants who use the same chatbot-written answers will be lost among identical competitors.
“You need human checkpoints,” Holman said, “otherwise you're just going to have an ocean of everyone spitting out the same thing.”
