Hiring for white-collar jobs has been especially weak, part of what economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” job market in which businesses are largely holding onto their workers while hiring remains sluggish, making it difficult for younger workers to land permanent work.
Technology is also shaking up the hiring process. Automated systems enable job seekers to easily apply to more jobs, but those same systems also makes it even tougher to get noticed. According to data from hiring platform Greenhouse, the average recruiter has 3.5 times more job applications to sift through than they did a few years earlier.
But artificial intelligence has offered job seekers new ways to stand out, such as improving résumés or helping with interview prep. Here’s advice from experts on how to use technology to your benefit.
Properly using AI to build your résumé
An updated résumé is one of the basic tenets of a job search. AI is a great tool for revamping CVs and cover letters, but experts warn that everyone else has also already realized this.
AI “absolutely does risk reducing your job application materials to the same style as every other applicant’s,” said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at online job and recruitment site Glassdoor. “As a hiring manager, this is something I have seen myself in application materials that have clearly been customized using AI. For job seekers, that makes it hard for your application to stand out from your peers.”
Instead, take it a step further by using AI to “personalize your approach” to the companies you’re most interested in, recommends Daniel Chait, CEO of recruitment firm Greenhouse. You could, for example, get AI to read all of a company’s reports for the past year or analyze its job openings to “help you improve your cover letter or the wording of your résumé in very specific ways,” he said.
