AI Generated Resumes
If you apply on LinkedIn, you may see that a given job has “100+” applicants in less than a day. That’s not a mistake, or a typo.
Just because you see so many applicants doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply if you’re qualified. You should.
Adding to the difficulty is that many of those 100+ applicants are faking it. It isn’t difficult to create a resume based on the job description. It’s easy to apply, so plenty of unqualified people just go for it. The potential of getting a job is a huge reward for very little effort.
The problem with AI Generated resumes: With the popularization of AI, creating and submitting a tailored resume is easier than ever. It will be perfectly formatted, have relevant bullet points, and follow the STAR method.
The Perfectly Formatted Resume is Now Table Stakes
For a long time, recruiters have used resume quality as a first-pass filter. Typos, inconsistent formatting, or weird font choices were an easy way to thin the herd. The thinking was, “If they can’t make a good resume, they probably can’t do the job.”
Whether that was ever true is debatable, but it doesn’t matter anymore. That shortcut is gone.
AI tools can spit out a visually perfect resume in seconds. This means recruiters, who are often overworked and short on time, now have a pile of pristine-looking resumes to sift through. They can no longer rely on superficial things to rule people out. They have to actually read them.
Keywords, Keywords, Everywhere
The bigger problem is that many of these perfect resumes are full of lies.
A candidate can take a job description, paste it into an AI, and ask it to generate a resume that precisely meets the requirements listed. The AI will happily oblige, creating a document packed with all the right keywords and experiences, whether the person has them or not.
This completely breaks the primary tool recruiters use: the Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Recruiters live and die by their ability to run keyword and boolean searches in the ATS to find candidates. Now, those searches return a mountain of noise.
The real candidates - people who are a good fit for the job - get buried under a pile of perfectly tailored fakes. It’s much harder for recruiters to find the signal.
So, How Do You Compete?
In a market where there is already a lot of competition, the bar has just been raised. Having a less-than-perfect resume is no longer an option. If your resume doesn’t look as good as the AI-generated ones, you’re starting at a disadvantage.
This doesn’t mean you should give up. It means you have to adapt.
Don’t Lie, Emphasize
The most important rule is to be honest. An AI can help you write a resume, but it can’t do the job for you. If you get an interview based on skills you don’t have, it’s going to become obvious very quickly. Use AI to emphasize the qualifications you do have that match the job description.
Use the Tool
There’s a growing acceptance of using AI to help with resumes, as long as the content is truthful. Think of it as a writing assistant. It can help you find the right words, structure your bullet points, and make sure everything is formatted correctly.
The new standard is to customize your resume for every job you apply for. Use AI to do this. Feed it your real resume and the job description, and ask it to create a version that highlights the most relevant parts of your experience. This doesn’t just help you get past the initial screening; it makes it easier for the recruiter to see why you’re a great fit.
