AI in Resume Writing: Insights from Indeed’s 2024 Survey and My Experience as a Technical Interviewer
With AI tools like ChatGPT becoming increasingly popular, job seekers are leveraging them to draft resumes, apply to multiple positions, and even communicate with recruiters. But how does this trend sit with employers?
To find out, Indeed conducted 60-minute interviews with enterprise recruiters and small business owners to understand their perspectives on candidates using AI across different crucial areas sush as writing resumes.
Indeed used a fictional AI tool similar to ChatGPT to create AI resumes and presented these AI-generated resumes to employers for feedback.
In this article, I review Indeed's findings on using AI for resume writing and discuss how job seekers can use AI effectively into their resumes without raising red flags.
Takeaways from the Indeed Survey
Using AI in resume writing impresses employers with its accuracy but often falls short in personalization, according to Indeed’s 2024 survey, which involved 60-minute interviews with recruiters and small business owners. To make a stronger impression, job seekers should ensure AI-generated resumes are tailored to highlight the most relevant skills.
Insights from the Interview Room
In this section, I’ll share my personal experiences as a technical interviewer and what I’ve observed regarding candidates who use AI in their job applciations.
AI Levels the Playing Field for Job Seekers
First of all, it is worth mentioning that using an assistant for writing resumes is not a new thing. For years, professional resume writers have been helping job seekers who could afford resume and cover letter packages to stand out. If you couldn’t afford it? Chances are, your resume struggled to stand out!
What did AI do? It unlocked the power of getting help with resume writing for everyone! You don’t need to spend $$$ to optimize your resume anymore. But does this mean you can go to ChatGPT, type 'create a resume for me,' and expect a personalized, impressive resume? Of course not!
AI is Not a Magician (at Least Not Yet!)
There are so many general prompts on the internet encouraging job seekers to create or tailor their resumes to a specific job using a generic prompt!
Let’s be honest, AI is not a magician! You need to be clear about what you’re asking it to do, especially when it comes to complex tasks. If you’re not a resume writer, experienced recruiter, or interviewer, there’s a high chance you don’t have that kind of insight, and you might not know what needs to be asked to get a good result.
So, you need a good understanding of what makes a strong resume and then provide AI with the right information to help create one for you.
Does it make sense to reject a resume because they used AI?
To me, it doesn’t matter if candidates used AI to represent their skills, as long as they didn’t submit a generic resume; what matters is whether they showcased their skills properly and were honest on their resume.
I look for highly skilled professionals who know how to perform their tasks and lead thier teams well. If they’re smart enough to use AI wisely, that’s a plus—it shows they know how to save time without sacrificing the quality of their work!
I should also remind you that recruiters may skip your resume if it’s a generic AI-generated one. So, whether you’re using AI or not, make sure your resume highlights the most relevant skills and achievements required for the job you’re applying for.
Dr.Haqqani: Rejecting a resume solely for using AI doesn’t make sense unless it lacks personalization or contains dishonest information, which can usually be identified by an experienced technical interviewer.
Which Part of Your Resume Definitely Needs a Human Touch?
AI can handle resume bullet points quite well—I’d give it a 9 out of 10 in this area. So, you can definitely use it to create the first draft of your work experience section, which typically doesn’t require a lot of revision.
However, you’ll need to spend more time on the professional summary section. This is the part that needs your unique, tailored story, and while AI can do a good job, it often falls short of great.
Using a generic AI prompt to write the professional summary doesn’t help much. In fact, writing it from scratch yourself might even require fewer rounds of revision.
Here’s an example of a professional summary generated with a simple prompt:
"Astute and industrious professional with a distinguished tenure exceeding [X years] within the esteemed realm of [Industry/Field]…"
See the complexity of the language? This is a resume, not an ancient manuscript! Be mindful of the complexity of words in all the AI generated documents. This section of your resume needs your full attention.
Dr.Haqqani: Currently, AI excels at drafting resume bullet points, but the professional summary needs a personal touch to stand out. While AI can help, crafting this section, you need to make sure it reflects your unique story without unnecessary complexity.
AI Exaggeration Risks
When you use AI to write your resume, you might be impressed by the results. AI often suggests quantifiable metrics that make your resume look amazing. While this might help you stand out during screening, remember, you need to be able to prove what you have on your resume during interviews.
Here’s a real case example:
say you have three years of experience and are applying for a data scientist role. You’ve included the following bullet point on your resume:
- Created an advanced machine learning model which increased the conversion rate by 20% for a marketing campaign using cutting-edge AI at a leading telco company.
This bullet point might help you pass the recruiter screening phase, but it also sets certain expectations for me as your technical interviewer.
Either you’re a genius who discovered a hidden pattern no one else could see in that large telco company, or you’re not being fully honest.
If it’s the former, you’ll need to tell a compelling story about your methodology to convince me that a 20% increase actually happened. When you claim these achievements on your resume, you can’t pass your technical interviews with a generic story; your technical interviewer will pick up on it.
The worst part? The technical interviewers often asked to provide feedback to recruiters after rejection. Being dishonest on your resume can flag you with recruiters, causing you to miss out on other opportunities. If your interviewer tells a recruiter I needed someone confident in skill X and the candidate didn’t demonstrate that, they might still offer you other opportunities. But if the feedback is that the candidate couldn’t back up what was on their resume, you lose those additional chances.
AI-generated resumes with impressive metrics can help you pass initial screenings, but be ready to prove every claim in interviews. Overstating achievements risks raising red flags with recruiters, potentially closing doors to future opportunities.
Final Words
To sum up, I see using AI in your resume can help you save time and cost. However, some parts of your resume such as professional summary need a human review and you need to spend time to make sure that part is well-written and personalized.
On the other hand, AI can handle other parts such as skill section or resume bullet points properly and it can be a great assistant which gives you a draft that needs less of human revision.
Hope this summary of my experience as a technical interviewer and the findings from Indeed helped you realize that using AI in your resume is not a problem! The problem arises when candidates use generic prompts and submit a generic resume or when a candidate is not honest on their resume.
Feel free to try our AI Resume Assistant for resume building, resume tailoring, and role assessment.
Good luck, everyone!
