AI tools have never been more useful, and they’re only becoming more powerful. They also have some great applications for job searching. But using AI incorrectly can badly damage your chances of securing your next role. On today’s Argentus Blog: our advice about how to use AI in your job search, and the common pitfalls to avoid. 

It’s hard out there for job candidates. We know, because, as a recruitment firm, we speak with them every day. The process feels more automated and less human than ever. Candidates spend hours carefully crafting CVs and feeding them into applicant tracking systems. Online platforms make it easier than ever to apply, but harder than ever to know whether your resume will be read by a hiring manager who can adequately assess your skills—if it’s read by a human at all. 

All of this was true before AI entered the picture. Now, companies are using AI tools to screen candidate resumes. And AI startups have proliferated promising big results for job seekers. AI will write your resume, write a cover letter, will even go ahead and apply for jobs on your behalf. If it all sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is. We’ve heard stories of people wasting time and energy on AI job hunting tools that apply to jobs they have no interest in, or no relevant skills for. Worse than that, some candidates using AI tools have found that they’ve completely torpedoed an interview process. 

But that doesn’t mean that AI doesn’t have a place in the job search process. 

So today, we’re offering some advice for candidates about how to use AI in the job hunt. In a world where everyone, it seems, is using AI for some aspect of their work, it doesn’t hurt to explore how it can help you land your next role. But it’s worth being thoughtful about it—and avoiding some common pitfalls that come from relying too much on AI shortcuts. 

What Not to Do:

Here’s a story that a candidate recently relayed to us. They saw a job posting that looked interesting, and because they were slammed at work, decided to plug their resume into ChatGPT and have it do a rewrite to fit the job description. They got an interview, and about halfway through the hiring manager asked them about a bullet point in the “experience” section of their resume. Turns out, it was for a project that this candidate had never worked on. They stammered and tried to play it off as a mistake, but the hiring manager knew something was up. 

The sad thing is, this candidate was very qualified for the position. An AI hallucination had cost them the job. 

Most of us think that we’d never commit such an error, but it happens all the time. Our clients report it happening more and more. Candidates look great on paper, but can’t speak to their accomplishments or experience to back it up. 

The more you rely on AI as a shortcut to avoid the (often painstaking) work of matching yourself to a position, the more likely you are to misrepresent yourself, even inadvertently. A sparkling AI-generated resume might get you past automated screening tools and into a job interview, but if you fall flat, it looks worse than if you just acknowledge any gaps in your experience upfront. 

Here’s our advice: don’t use AI to generate any written material that you expect a human to read. 

That means a resume or a cover letter. Even if you do the work of double and triple checking it for accuracy, you’re still sacrificing your unique perspective. AI-written material still reads as “off” to a discerning human. And that sterling AI resume will hardly stand out from the thousands of other resumes that same LLM has generated that day. It can feel tempting to use AI as a shortcut to send more applications, but quality will always win out over quantity. Even in a market saturated with AI resumes, a succinct expression of your experiences and value—written by you—works best. 

But that doesn’t mean that you should avoid AI entirely. Here are our tips for using it effectively in your job search:

When used correctly, AI can be tremendously powerful for job searching. Instead of using it as a shortcut, use it as a tool. In its current form, AI works best to parse information, conduct research, and ideate. Using AI as a sounding board and coach is going to be more effective than letting it manage the process for you. Here are some ways that candidates are having success using AI in their job search, without risking misrepresenting themselves:

• Researching open positions. AI tools can surface some jobs that won’t show up on the same job boards everyone else is using. This use case can still be occasionally spotty as certain programs will show out of date listings. Still, you can plug in exactly the kinds of jobs you’re looking for, with the exact location, and AI will show some positions that you might otherwise be missing. 
• Comparing your resume to a job description. This is a great one. Rather than asking an AI to rewrite your resume to fit a job description, send it a job description, and ask it to compare your resume to that job description. Often it will point out gaps in keywords and terminology that might be missing, which is extra valuable when applying through an applicant tracking system. AI will often suggest new bullet points or keywords to shore up the fit. Evaluate them with a critical eye: are they accurate to your experience? Do they actually help you communicate your skills and value? If so, add them manually into your resume, with the confidence that AI isn’t misrepresenting you.  
• “Practice” job interviewing. If you make it to an interview stage, you can ask an AI tool to give you example questions based on the job description, and you can begin thinking about how you’ll answer them. An AI will never be as good—or as thorough—as a human interviewer, but it can be a useful trial run to keep you on your toes and consider the kinds of questions that might come through. 

These are just a few ways to use AI to augment your job search, without sacrificing your unique perspective, or opening yourself up to misrepresenting yourself to a prospective employer. As always, authenticity, transparency and originality are more important than saving a few minutes of your time. 

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Stay tuned for more supply chain job search and hiring advice from Argentus. And as always, if you have any immediate or upcoming hiring needs in Supply Chain Management or Procurement, reach out to us today! Send an email to recruit@argentus.com outlining your needs.