AI resume generators are flooding recruitment with applications, recruiters want to deliberately make the process harder
Companies such as Vendr and Greenhouse report that AI resume generators and automated application tools have increased the number of job applications from dozens to thousands a day. Some applications are fake or AI-generated, so recruiters now want to bring deliberate obstacles back into the process.
Jamie Stockwell, head of HR at Vendr, describes how the hiring process has changed over the past year: previously, a job posting would attract dozens of applications, at most around a hundred; today, it can easily attract a thousand within one to two days. According to Stockwell, a substantial portion of these applications are “a total scam” — fake candidates — and many others were clearly written using artificial intelligence, making it harder to distinguish individual applicants from one another. He says this means the company is paying expensive talent acquisition specialists to do nothing but review applications all day.
Ophir Samson, head of voice AI at Greenhouse (who joined the company this year after it acquired his startup focused on AI interviews), describes a similar experience among recruiters: “A year ago, every recruiter told me they wanted the simplest possible application process. The result was 2000 applicants in 24 hours for a single position.” According to Samson, recruiters are now reversing course — they want to bring friction back into the process, because it makes no one's job easier: good candidates cannot stand out, and bad ones slip through the net.
The increase is also supported by LinkedIn data provided to Wired: the number of applications per applicant on the platform is 46 percent higher than in February 2020 and has risen by 22 percent since the launch of ChatGPT. LinkedIn has therefore introduced limits to curb automated and low-quality applications, and this month it is launching a feature that will directly tell seemingly unqualified applicants that they are probably not a good fit for a position and suggest other openings. Meanwhile, tools such as JobAssist, Sonara or Apply4Me from Ladder promise applicants that they will automatically submit “10 times more applications with less effort than a single manual application” on their behalf.
According to Jane Curran, director of transformation at real estate company JLL, the job market has turned 180 degrees compared with the post-pandemic period, when applicants could receive three offers in a single afternoon — there are few vacancies and an excess of applications, except in fields such as skilled trades, where demand for workers still exceeds supply. You can find details in the source article.
Why it matters
For job seekers, this shows that relying on AI tools for mass application submissions can be counterproductive, because companies are responding to this trend by adding obstacles and filters designed to deter precisely these mass and low-quality applications. Companies and HR teams, meanwhile, face a growing workload and costs associated with sorting applications, pushing them to invest in their own AI tools for screening and interviews, such as the acquisition of an AI interview startup by Greenhouse.
Two audiences, two different impacts
What this means
For individuals
Job seekers who use tools for mass automated application submissions risk having their application get lost in a flood of similar AI-generated applications, because recruiters are now deliberately complicating the process to limit the volume.
For a business
The hiring process is becoming more expensive and slower because recruiters have to review hundreds to thousands of applications a day, some of which are fake or AI-generated; companies such as Greenhouse are responding by acquiring AI interview tools and adding deliberate obstacles to the application process.
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Event sources
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