But if AI tools like ChatGPT proliferate — and millions of job seekers begin using AI tools to craft their résumé,"If everyone starts to use ChatGPT on their cover letters, on their résumés, if you are an employer looking at résumés, you will no longer be able to use writing quality to try and understand something about the worker who applied," van Inwegen said, who also noted that the tool for this experiment was"sort of evening the playing field...
"Everyone's résumé will have gone through some sort of algorithmic checker," van Inwegen said."And so it has the potential to sort of homogenize writing in cover letters and on résumés for better or for worse."In the short-term, while many of these tools are still developing, the best writersin their applications.
"Our results suggest that instead of signaling whether or not a job seeker would be a good worker, better writing on résumés simply makes it clearer what skills and abilities the job seekers have, making it easier for employers to ascertain which workers would be a good fit," van Inwegen told Insider.
While this new AI-assisted world may make things more difficult for job seekers, the researchers found that employers may not be any worse off when it comes to hiring right now. Even though the use of AI tools may have obscured some candidates' writing abilities, they found"no evidence that employers were less satisfied" with the candidates they ultimately hired.
This suggests that some companies may be limiting their candidate pool more than they need to, and that the wider use of AI tools could help businesses that are experiencing"Our results definitely suggest that the pool of applicants that employers are considering should expand if the problem is that you're reading these résumés and you aren't able to understand exactly if they're a good fit, if you increase the quality of the writing in them, that then the employers...