Job seekers are trying to game the application process using AI, but it's not working. Jodi Beggs, a data scientist and job seeker, got feedback from an online system that compared her resume and cover letter to a job description, dinging her for minor formatting issues. The system, similar to Jobscan, is designed to help candidates tailor their materials to match what an ATS wants to see.
The problem is, this premise isn't always correct. While some companies use automated ranking, others still manage hiring personally. Daniel Chait, CEO of ATS company Greenhouse, says there's a lot of folklore about these tools, and no two ATSs are the same. The technology changes fast, so an AI tool inside an ATS might work one way today and a different way tomorrow.
As long as applicants believe AI is involved, they'll still try to game it using their own AI. But this approach is a shaky proposition. One recruiter proved that even with atrocious Jobscan scores, she still got a dozen interviews and an offer. Consider, too, that Jobscan costs $30 to $50 per month, and the company isn't exactly incentivized to get you off the job market.
Chait says we're in an AI doom loop, where each side has a problem and uses AI to solve it, but in ways that make the problem worse. Both job seekers and employers are experiencing a breakdown of trust, with candidates sinking time into their search and hearing nothing, and employers receiving hundreds of identical applications.
Some companies, like Toshiba and Doist, rely more on humans than technology for hiring. Kim Jones, vice president of human resources at Toshiba, says they have humans review every application, and while AI can polish up materials, it's not going to help with getting through the ATS. Doist's head of people, Nadia Vatalidis, says their team experimented with ATS rankings and found that the person they hired wasn't in the short list.
Instead of focusing on gaming the system, some job seekers are using AI differently. James Jacobsen, a design professional, used AI to streamline and track his job search, analyzing job listings and logging them. He devised an elaborate scoring system and got a few bites, but no offers. Chait says job candidates like Jacobsen are asking themselves how they can possibly put in more effort, but doing more of the same isn't the answer.
For job seekers, the answer is to spend time researching companies, networking, and remembering that it's not them, it's the system. As Chait says, the system stinks, and it's time for a change.
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