A new survey from CV-Library confirms what some job seekers have felt for a while. Increasing reliance on AI in the hiring process means some talented candidates are being overlooked or excluded.
The survey of nearly 500 recruiters and 1,100 candidates found that while companies are receiving more applications, the use of AI to speed up applications is causing high-quality candidates to be overlooked or excluded.
- 35% of recruiters say they miss out on top talent due to the lack of human intuition when AI is used in the process.
- More than a quarter (27%) say strong applications are filtered out before they even get an interview.
- One in five (20%) report that the quality of candidates overall is lower where AI is used.
According to CV-Library, this view is one that job seekers have long suspected. More than half (53%) of job seekers surveyed believe their applications were rejected by AI without human review, and 46% said unfair rejections are one of their biggest job search frustrations.
This situation has led to a situation where 40% of job seekers have given up on, or are considering giving up on, their applications due to the use of AI in the hiring process. This is especially true when AI bots are used for selection.
Young candidates are especially skeptical.
- Almost two-thirds (64%) of Gen Z suspect that AI rejected them during the initial hiring process, making Gen Z the most likely generation to question automated hiring decisions.
- Gen Z is also the most frustrated by unfair rejections (53%), followed by Millennials (47%) and Gen X (46%).
AI adoption is booming as employers seek to manage rising application volumes in a tough market for job seekers. More than four in five recruiters (83%) are using AI to speed up hiring, and 28% rely on AI to manage high volumes of applications.
However, recruiters’ confidence in its effectiveness is currently limited, with only 36 percent saying it improves their speed to hire.
Recruiters say they perform best at tasks such as writing job descriptions (63%) and scheduling interviews (38%). But when it comes to more subtle qualities, confidence plummets. 72 percent say AI struggles to identify cultural fit, and 55 percent say it poorly assesses soft skills.
“Candidates have long felt that the hiring process is dehumanizing and that the best talent is unfairly singled out,” commented Lee Biggins, CEO and founder of CV-Library. “This insight from both agency and corporate recruiters suggests their complaints may be justified.”
“This is a timely wake-up call that you shouldn’t outsource everything to AI, especially when hiring, where every candidate is unique,” adds Biggins. “Automating tedious processes can add value, but great recruiters use it to support human intuition, not replace it.”
