She’s noticed a big change recently as the amount of AI-assisted resumes have flooded the market, especially for entry-level jobs that she specialises in.
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“It is clear that CVs are becoming more and more similar lately with students using online templates like Canva and other AI tools to assist them,” she says. “It’s becoming harder to see someone’s true personality shine through and understand who they really are.”
The tell-tale signs that a CV has been generated by a robot is the similarity in language, and a vague intended audience. “It’s also obvious when people don’t tailor their applications to the firms they’re applying to,” she says.
Millar believes that it’s perfectly OK to use AI to help with some of the writing process, but you still need to tweak the language, rewrite and add your personality, as well as specific research about the business you want to join and your potential role on it.
“The last thing a recruiter wants to see is a generic resume,” says Millar. “Use AI to assist, not replace, your thinking.”
One simple rule to avoid turning in slop for anything created with AI is to think of the creation process as three distinct stages: the start, middle and end.
AI is very useful at either end, but still needs human intervention in the middle. For example, you could use it as the beginning of your resume writing process to generate thought starters or create a first draft, but you then need to add and edit your own experiences.
Or you can use it at the end to polish your CV and suggest ways of ensuring it really reflects what you’re trying to say.
But if you use it as the start, middle and end of the entire process without adding any critical thought, you’re most likely to end up with generic content that no one wants to read.
So the next time you dust off your CV for an upcoming job interview, don’t just ask an AI program to churn out the same template using bland language and hand that in.
Write it from your perspective, add genuine learnings and finish it off with the little details that will help you stand out. That’s the only way that we’re going to be able to stop the slop.
Tim Duggan is author of Work Backwards: The Revolutionary Method to Work Smarter and Live Better. He writes a regular newsletter at timduggan.substack.com
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