Last month, AI company Anthropic sent a message to potential job seekers, urging them to refrain from using AI bots during the application process.
The online application message states, “We encourage you to use AI systems during your role, but please do not use AI assistants during the application process. We want to understand your personal interest in humanity without mediating through the AI system.
AI companies that ban Genai use may seem ironic, but it's an understandable response to an increasingly common problem that is causing endless headaches to hire managers.
Tide dal waves in AI applications
Two-thirds (65%) of job seekers use AI tools to help their applications. AI is commonly used, for example, to write cover letters, allowing candidates to send more applications than ever before.
Natalie Burns, a strategic partner at branding agency Unitedus, says her company was recently “inundated” in an application for the role of senior strategist. The number of role applicants was 173% higher than similar job ads posted the previous year.
Burns acknowledges that this change has been partially reduced to market conditions, but employment vacancy in the UK has been steadily declining since 2022. In other words, more and more people are competing for fewer positions.
“More than that comes from the use of automated technology and AI, making it faster for applicants to fire huge amounts of applications,” Burns says.
AI makes it quicker for applicants to fire huge amounts of applications
Another survey by software company Capterra found that 41% of UK job seekers used AI to lie about their skills in their recruitment applications, while 27% admitted to using AI to complete a test or skill assessment.
In the case of burns, findings like these undermined her confidence in the candidate submission. “It's difficult to identify the contribution and influence of the people you employ,” she adds.
Michael Kahn, chief of staff at London-based PR firm Rostrum, says JobSeekers' reliance on AI has also led to poor quality cover letters. Today, he claims that many applications “esquely similar” to each other, and it's not difficult to identify what is written by AI.
“They lack the personal touch of real applicants,” says Khan. “They may be beautifully written and very refined, but they sound like robots.”
Caroline Fischer, Welcome To the Jungle, and the country manager of the Careers site, and Careers site, add that some candidates have failed to remove prompt responses from AI chatbots. For example, ChatGpt precedes responses to being asked to write a job application saying, “Absolutely! Here is a sophisticated and compelling job application.”
“It reflects the way someone does their day to day work, without critique or creativity,” she says. “In a competitive, loud job market, they are unlikely to be candidates going on interviews.”
Removes noise
While some employers have banned AI assistance in the application process, the challenge is ensuring that candidates follow this rule. “I don't think people will stop using AI tools because Pandora's Box is open,” said Khyati Sundaram, CEO of recruitment platform Applied.
AI detection tools help recruiters to rule out some AI writing applications. However, it is not yet possible to fully accurately identify the robot-created text.
People will not stop using AI tools, Pandora's Box has been opened
Sundaram suggests that companies rethink their recruitment process. “There's artificiality in the recruitment industry, where we've struggled to move away from, whether it's resumes or cover letters,” she says.
One solution is to switch to skill-based recruitment. Sundaram said that by focusing on individual skills rather than resume experience or qualifications, businesses can evaluate candidates more accurately and objectively, they can more accurately and objectively evaluate candidates. “About 80% of employment is human factors and I don't think AI can replace it,” she added.
However, not all skill assessments are immune to AI infiltrating. For example, the Rostrum evaluation process is used to include written exams. However, this task has been “damaged” by candidates to regularly use AI programs to complete it, Khan explains.
He is currently requiring candidates to complete the written portion of the application either in Rostrum's office or in a video call.
AI Gender Gap
Failure to exclude AI-generated applications can also affect gender balance in the workplace. A 2024 study identified gender gaps in AI, comparing 50% of men using AI in the past 12 months compared to 37% of women. This means that employers may receive more applications from women from more men thanks to genai.
Virgin Media O2 was aware of this potential issue when it redesigned this year's apprentice application process to be more “AI resilient.” Future career leader Karen Handley explained: “We want everyone to be treated equally in the process, whether they use AI or not, so we want to avoid liking people who use AI and remove barriers to those who may not be able to access this technology.”
The apprentice role application process focuses on potential, strength and motivation. Handley said: “We've changed some of the evaluation centre exercises, so we're focusing more on the future strengths, as opposed to competency-based questions that are easy to answer AI systems.”
Video interviews have also been replaced by telephone interviews because there are fewer ways to use AI on the phone.
With the use of AI in the application process becoming more common, this could be an advantage for candidates who choose to write their own cover letters. “We rarely receive applications that are not touched by AI, so writing our own cover letters and CVs has become a differentiator,” says Khan. “It really helps people stand out.”
For employers, using a variety of assessment methods that allow them to test their soft and technical skills is the best way to rule out AI-supported applicants. “The more information there is about candidates, the more delicate it becomes about work matches,” Sundaram says.
AI may have made it easier to apply for jobs, but by bringing the human element back into the recruitment process, employers can get better ideas from the people they actually employ.
Last month, AI company Anthropic sent a message to potential job seekers, urging them to refrain from using AI bots during the application process.
The online application message states, “We encourage you to use AI systems during your role, but please do not use AI assistants during the application process. We want to understand your personal interest in humanity without mediating through the AI system.
AI companies that ban Genai use may seem ironic, but it's an understandable response to an increasingly common problem that is causing endless headaches to hire managers.
