The résumé is dying, and AI is holding the smoking gun

9 comments

1. >Employers are drowning in AI-generated job applications, with ***LinkedIn now processing 11,000 submissions per minute—a 45 percent surge from last year***, according to new data [reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/21/business/dealbook/ai-job-applications.html) by The New York Times.

   >***In response to the deluge, companies now deploy their own AI defenses***. Chipotle’s AI chatbot screening tool, nicknamed [Ava Cado](https://newsroom.chipotle.com/2024-10-22-CHIPOTLE-INTRODUCES-NEW-AI-HIRING-PLATFORM-TO-SUPPORT-ITS-ACCELERATED-GROWTH), has reportedly reduced hiring time by 75 percent. However, this trend from businesses has led to an arms race of escalating automation, with candidates using AI to generate interview answers while companies deploy AI to detect them—***creating what amounts to machines talking to machines while humans get lost in the shuffle***.

   >***The frustration has reached a point where AI companies themselves are backing away from their own technology during the hiring process***. Anthropic recently [advised](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/02/irony-alert-anthropic-says-applicants-shouldnt-use-llms/) job seekers not to use LLMs on their applications—a striking admission from a company whose business model depends on people using AI for everything else.

   >Research firm Gartner says that ***fake identity cases are growing rapidly***, with the company [estimating](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/08/fake-job-seekers-use-ai-to-interview-for-remote-jobs-tech-ceos-say.html) that ***by 2028, about 1 in 4 job applicants could be fraudulent***. And as we have previously reported, security researchers have also [discovered](https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/10/ai-chatbots-can-read-and-write-invisible-text-creating-an-ideal-covert-channel/) that ***AI systems can hide invisible text in applications, potentially allowing candidates to game screening systems using*** [***prompt injections***](https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/09/twitter-pranksters-derail-gpt-3-bot-with-newly-discovered-prompt-injection-hack/) in ways human reviewers can’t detect.

   >And that’s not all. ***Even when AI screening tools work as intended, they*** [***exhibit***](https://arstechnica.com/ai/2024/11/study-ais-prefer-white-male-names-on-resumes-just-like-humans/) ***similar biases to human recruiters***, preferring white male names on résumés—raising legal concerns about discrimination.

   >Perhaps the endgame is robots interviewing other robots for jobs performed by robots

   I suppose the big question is how the economy and society will work if this endgame actually happens…

2. I heard that in korea and some other countries you are supposed to send your resume/cover letter phisically and it must not be printed but handwritten because of the value posed on calligraphy and because calligraphy is a way to judge ones character (if you fake by getting someone else to write it to you , later on a in person interview you will be discovered because your handwriting don’t match and you will be disqualified)

   Yeah we are getting to a point that we can not believe on anything online , so go full offline may happen. 

   Sometimes the only way to move foward is going back to change paths.

3. It’s actually worse than this. People are using AI to not only write resumes and cover letters but they’re using AI in [hiring prompts](https://youtube.com/shorts/X-emOqJPPKc?feature=shared) and even during [interviews](https://youtube.com/shorts/0cTD4r29tmg?feature=shared). Hell, even [court](https://youtube.com/shorts/MkmfZPt-gaw?feature=shared

   My SO is a hiring manager and they run resumes/cover letters/anything else in systems to detect AI. Her most recent zoom interviewee asked if she could type the questions in the chat box for him. When she said no, there was always a pause before he answered questions or he would do a weird “Yes… thank you for the question… that’s a really good question… and I am glad you asked it… [he’s waiting for AI to give him a response so he’s stalling.]”

   We’re about to take “fake it til you make it” to a whole new level.

4. Let’s also not forget that a lot of businesses use AI to sort through applications as well. Just making it robot on robot. It’s quite difficult to know if a real person is reading your resume.

5. I’m a hiring engineer in a software company in Ireland, have been on the hiring board for my relatively small company for a few years now.

   When I started, during a hiring cycle when a job app was open, the most CVs I’ve ever seen at once unprocessed for an opening was 79.

   A month ago, I saw 6,450.

6. The companies started it by auto sorting resumes using machine tools instead of actually taking a critical eye to potential hires. Now it’s a problem when people seeking employment do the same back?

7. We’ve already used ATS systems for a long time. Now the employee also has a computer on their side. When you already have to get past a black box computer system and your resume is supposed to be tailored to each job, AI is the only way to not spend hours on each application.

   Don’t even mention cover letters. What a fucking waste of time. I’ll happily have AI write those for me.

8. This mutually assuted destruction was bound to happen because employers keep on posting job applications they refuse to fill.

   Creating blocking filters to fish out resumes in the early 2020s is the cause. The public just realizes resumes and cover letters are trash now.

   Blame AI all you want, but employers need better business practices.

9. These companies end up forcing people to use AI anyways if they want a job due to the stupid ass keyword bullshit they keep pushing.

   Most resume don’t even see human eyes unless they get through whatever esoteric bullshit their ats is looking for.

   For anyone new to this whole thing, it ends up becoming a nightmarish full job unpaid job that is basically the same as filling in full applications to submit one lottery ticket.

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