Mahendra M. was hitting a wall. Despite years of experience as a solutions engineer, he was sending out dozens of applications and getting very few responses. The challenge wasn't his qualifications—he knew they were rock solid. The trouble was standing out in a competitive job market.
"That's when I turned to AI," he says.
Rather than treat the machine as a magic bullet, Mahendra, who asked that his full name not be used for this article, used it as a collaborator. Using ChatGPT as what he calls an "on-demand writing coach,” he would feed it job descriptions and his background, then ask it to iterate on his resume and cover letters to align his applications with each role.
This process became an ongoing feedback loop in which Mahendra continuously refined his prompts and critiqued the AI's responses. Through multiple rounds, he gradually trained the system until it could consistently produce materials that matched his desired professional presentation.
The result: more opportunities to interview with employers and, ultimately, a new senior sales engineering position. "I saw a clear improvement in response rates once I started using AI to tailor my applications," Mahendra says. "Instead of hearing back from one in every 20, I was getting callbacks on every few I sent."
Mahendra’s success is what everyone hopes for when they turn to AI tools to help in their job search. But it’s not always the outcome. "I think what made my experience different from the average user was that I didn't just copy and paste responses," he says.
That’s the approach, though, many seem to have taken to implementing AI into their job search.
In 2024, one recruiter told CNBC that employers were receiving "hundreds of identical cover letters, word for word.” It was a clear sign that some job seekers are using AI to unleash an overwhelming volume of applications. A year later, the problem has only accelerated. In June, a former recruiter described the situation to the New York Times as “an ‘applicant tsunami’ that’s just going to get bigger.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, flooding the zone with applications can translate into an overwhelming failure rate.
When Indeed asked job seekers on social media how they used AI and how it helped, the typical reply was that they had no success when using artificial intelligence in the application process. One respondent griped that "300+ jobs later, and I had ONE interview that was a scam.” Another went so far as to say, “I tried and failed at using AI on my own. I'm pretty sure AI just makes job searching worse.”
The reality is not so neat and tidy—or so extreme. The rise of AI has undoubtedly altered the job search game. Tools meant to automate and expedite various tasks are creating new opportunities—and questions—for recruiters and job seekers alike.
We’ve been here before. Each new technology—the copy machine, the fax machine, email—offers genuine advantages and illusory quick fixes for job seekers. And, ultimately, the same rules apply for using AI in the job search as using it in other applications: the value you get out of it is determined by what you put into it.
A new tool requires new thinking
Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, has researched the evolution of the job search, specifically how friction (or lack thereof) in applications can directly affect hiring processes.
Berger explains that in the pre-Internet era, with limitations around searching and finding good matches (think classified ads, networking and job fairs), companies and job seekers wasted time and money to find each other. This often resulted in suboptimal matches. "Throw sand in the gears of a market, and you’ll get worse outcomes," is how he describes it.
The Internet changed things, making the process quicker and more efficient by removing friction. Starting with Indeed, job seekers and employers were able to conduct research on available jobs and workers and fill out or review applications with ease from the comfort of their own homes or offices for the first time. Today, generative AI can make the job search even faster, but it also makes spray-and-pray a more tempting option.
"If AI allows applicants to create a lot more applications than would otherwise be the case, that could compound the problems of efficiency,” Berger says.
Besides slowing down the hiring process, this approach can also lead to application homogenization.
Recent research published in Nature Human Behavior found that while ChatGPT can generate high volumes of ideas, those ideas often converge when used in isolation. Participants who relied solely on AI produced ideas that overlapped 94% of the time. But participants who combined AI assistance with their own critical thinking produced more distinct, creative results.
In other words, when it comes to the job search, augmentation trumps automation. The technology underpinning AI is powerful, and it can positively impact doing—or searching for—a job. Passively using AI to generate endless versions of the same application, though, is unlikely to get you any further than applying online or by email. Instead, utilize AI to do the thing that previous tech can’t: provide rapid feedback.
This is where Mahendra says his use of AI as an “on-demand writing coach” proves its value.
When Mahendra applied for a solutions engineer role at a data platform company, he used ChatGPT to help him craft a narrative around his experience working with data enrichment tools at his previous job. The AI assistant helped him frame his work in a way that directly aligned with the prospective company's mission and product.
Mahendra’s experience is obviously unique to his circumstances. But it shows that with the right mindset, approach and expectation, artificial intelligence can be a valuable tool in the job seeker’s kit.
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