AI was billed as a tool to democratize the résumé: with AI, candidates would be able to write far more compelling résumés, worthy of their true skills. Today, the picture is more nuanced. To be sure, some candidates are making liberal use of AI. To the dismay of some recruiters…
On the candidate side, Stéphanie Bélisle thinks highly of AI. When she wanted to move from an HR advisor role to that of an HRIS analyst, she used AI to identify her “transferable” skills.
“I find the sentences are more meaningful and I manage to describe my experiences better,” she says.
All she had to do was submit her old résumé to the AI and ask for an improved version that highlights her past experience relevant to the position she was aiming for.
Carol Lopez has, to say the least, an atypical career path, having gone from a researcher specializing in risk management in the Arctic to an intercultural mediator in Quebec’s school system. That is why she, too, used AI to highlight her transversal skills. She does offer this word of caution:
“Often, AI makes suggestions that don’t correspond exactly to what you do. You have to be careful to personalize your résumé yourself at the end.”
“Candidates are somewhat missing the chance to stand out”
Adeline Fortin, a digital advisor, concedes that résumés produced with the help of AI communicate skills to an employer more clearly. However, she also has reservations:
“We lose that touch of personality you catch a glimpse of in authentic writing. AI certainly helps clarify ideas and words, but candidates are somewhat missing the chance to stand out through the way they choose to showcase their background and skills.”
She understands why candidates use it. Whether we like it or not, writing a résumé will always be a necessary rite of passage; few people “enjoy” making a résumé. Adeline Fortin nonetheless insists on the importance of knowing how to stand out to employers:
“I find it a shame that we are entering a trend of ‘smoothing.’ Maybe I’ve stayed attached to the practices of the 2000s, when résumés sometimes looked like a patchwork of colors and icons, but at least it was creative and personalized. Practices are evolving, certainly, but we still have to find a way to stand out, on both the candidate and the employer side.”
The “good” candidates are becoming less and less visible…
Carl Frédéric De Celles, President of the agency iXmédia, also notes a kind of “smoothing” or homogenization of résumé content resulting from the use of AI.
“I get the impression that bad résumés stay bad, but that the majority are becoming beige in the age of AI.”
Suspicion is also starting to set in. According to a June survey conducted by Checkr, one employer in two (49%) realizes after hiring that the chosen candidate had exaggerated their skills by using AI. In the same survey, 59% of recruiters find it “very difficult” to get their hands on qualified candidates.
More broadly, Carl Frédéric De Celles observes that the growing automation of application processes also makes it harder for the best applications to stand out.
“On LinkedIn, it’s very easy to apply to every posting that comes along, so much so that we can no longer pick out the good profiles. The job market pushes me to be in hunting mode rather than observation mode,” he explains. “I try to see where the good candidates are who wouldn’t send us their résumé!”
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