An AI battle on both sides of hiring: applicants and recruiters are making things worse for each other, according to Greenhouse
Applicants pay tools such as Jobscan for AI optimization of their CVs for ATS filters, while recruiters deploy their own AI screening in ATS because of the flood of similar applications — according to the CEO of Greenhouse, this is a “doom loop” in which AI on both sides makes the problem worse.
According to an article in Wired, a so-called AI doom loop is emerging in the job market: job applicants pay tools such as Jobscan (30–50 dollars per month) to adjust their CVs so they pass automated screening in ATS (Applicant Tracking System), while recruiters, faced with a flood of nearly identical, AI-edited applications, are starting to deploy AI screening in their ATS just to be able to process the applications at all. According to Daniel Chait, CEO of Greenhouse (an ATS provider), both sides use AI to solve their own problem in a way that makes the problem worse for the other side — the more AI is used, the worse the outcome becomes for both sides.
The premise on which Jobscan and similar tools are based — that AI in ATS automatically selects only the top 10 to 20 percent of applicants and the rest are never seen by a human — does not hold everywhere, according to the article. Some companies leave all evaluation to people; according to Kim Jones, vice president of HR at Toshiba, people look at every application, and she says that editing application materials with AI will not help applicants get through ATS. Doist retrospectively tested AI screening on positions that had already been filled and found that, in two cases, actual employees who had proved themselves would not have made it onto the AI shortlist.
According to the source, the result is a loss of trust on both sides: applicants submit applications and receive no response, viewing the process as a black box, while recruiters receive dozens to hundreds of practically identical AI-generated applications and try to sort them quickly using AI tools.
Why it matters
For job applicants, this means that investing in tools such as Jobscan may not make sense, because according to the source, the assumption of universal AI filtering in ATS does not hold for all companies, and a low score in such a tool does not prevent them from getting an interview. For companies and recruiters, this means a risk that automated screening could reject high-quality candidates, as the retrospective test by Doist showed, while also further deepening applicants' distrust of the hiring process.
Two audiences, two different impacts
What this means
For individuals
Job applicants who pay to optimize their CVs with tools such as Jobscan rely on the assumption that an AI filter evaluates their application — but according to the source, that assumption does not hold universally, so investing in these tools may not have the desired effect, and the paid service also has no incentive to get applicants off the job market quickly.
For a business
According to the cited examples, companies that deploy AI screening in ATS to handle large volumes of applications risk rejecting high-quality candidates — Doist found that, for two positions tested, the AI shortlist would not have included people who had proved themselves after half a year on the job. At the same time, applicants are becoming increasingly distrustful because the hiring process feels like a black box.
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Event sources
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