AI and Employment: Is Your Next Hire a Disaster Waiting to Happen?
The growing use of artificial intelligence in job applications may likely lead to a rise in incapable candidates.
The use of AI tools in job applications risks employers hiring candidates who cannot perform their roles, one business owner noted
Advertising boss James Robinson said he and other business leaders were seeing a "real trend" in applicants using generative AI chatbots. He warned that candidates who were good at using the technology could "engineer" the process without being "capable of doing the job".
Careers adviser Megan Cooper also chipped in. However, he said that while AI could be a useful tool for job hunters, it should never replace "human judgement". A recent survey of more than 2,000 job applicants in the UK found that just under half had used AI to help them with the application process.
AI-Dependency
Mr Robinson, who runs Hello Starling, a Cardiff-based advertising agency, said vacancies at his business were attracting applications that were riddled with AI-generated sentences.
"There are some common sentences that we see. People are always trying to 'leverage their skillset'," he said.
"They're often saying things like 'my skills align with your organisation's objectives and goals'."
James Robinson has spotted common phrases and "Americanisms" that have been copied from AI chatbots and pasted into job applications. He said the chatbot ChatGPT confirmed that these were phrases it was likely to generate for a cover letter.
"[It is] very difficult for me to try and work out who is real versus which ones are robots," he admitted.
Mr Robinson shared his experiences of receiving AI-generated job applications on LinkedIn and said the responses from other business leaders "really surprised" him.
"I was really, really surprised to receive messages from people saying, 'I'm in exactly the same boat as you. How are we going to tell them apart?'
"You know, 'do we need to be using AI to fight against this and get on top of it?'
"So I think it is a real challenge in itself, but I don't think that I'm alone."
Mr Robinson said, however, that "appropriate" use of AI could help his business and that the technology was helping applicants to be more succinct in their applications.
