AI-created resumes are flooding the employment landscape, leading employers to implement their own AI evaluation tools in reaction.

As reported by the New York Times, LinkedIn saw a 45 percent increase in applications submitted through its platform during the last year—averaging 11,000 applications each minute. Generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, along with LinkedIn’s AI functionalities for personalizing job applications, play a significant role in the influx of applications overwhelming hiring managers. Furthermore, various AI resume applications claim to generate resumes or even fully automate the job application process.

A brief search reveals numerous resources on how to use AI to revise or completely draft resumes. These approaches include requesting ChatGPT to customize a resume for a specific job listing or to produce content that highlights your abilities in a manner that catches recruiters’ attention.

Ironically, employing ChatGPT to make your application “unique” is actually causing resumes to seem “suspiciously alike,” according to recruiters interviewed by the Times. These recruiters report facing greater difficulty in distinguishing candidates who are authentically and distinctively qualified.

As a result, employers are increasingly adopting AI instrumentation to sift through applications, resulting in an “arms race,” as the report characterized it. In October, LinkedIn rolled out a feature known as Hiring Assistant to aid recruiters in automating parts of the hiring workflow, including crafting job postings and pinpointing candidates that best align with the required qualifications.

The Times article underscores how companies like Chipotle have considerably shortened hiring periods by employing chatbots to screen potential hires. Naturally, applicants may also leverage their own AI tools to engage with recruiters. “We find ourselves in a situation of AI versus AI,” Hung Lee, author of a recruitment newsletter, commented to the publication.

In a way, automating the job hunt through AI represents an advancement of the same methods that candidates and recruiters have traditionally used. Applicants have always strived to elevate their resumes to the top by incorporating keywords and emphasizing particular skills to navigate the early screening stage. Even prior to the generative AI age, recruiters depended on software capable of automatically filtering candidates’ submissions.

Nowadays, they are leveraging AI solutions to alleviate the monotonous tasks.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, the parent company of Mashable, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April, claiming it violated Ziff Davis copyrights in the development and functioning of its AI systems.