Many job applicants dread the use of applicant tracking systems (ATS) by employers in general and the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) for preliminary decision-making in particular.
In my opinion, those worries are often justified but why is that so, actually?
The fundamental problem of the use of AI in recruiting
The problem of using AI in decision-making lies in the fact that, as impressive as the current state of AI may already be, it is simply not “intelligent” enough that it should be allowed to make final decisions. So, yes, it can be helpful but should not be trusted beyond a certain degree.
One could argue that it will always still be a human who offers the job to the candidate of choice. However, such human interaction is less likely part of the preliminary decision about whether a particular application should be considered by a human at all or not. In other words, if AI is not implemented and used with care, it will likely make final decisions automatically that may frequently be neither in the interest of the employer nor in the interest of the applicants.
A fool with an AI tool is still a fool
Don’t get me wrong, the use of AI in recruiting can be very helpful if it is integrated in the decision-making processes wisely. So, if AI assists hiring managers and recruiters in making better-balanced decisions, the outcome will also be in favor of the truly suitable applicants, especially if they did not hand in perfect application documents, for example.
In turn, if it is used without due care, it becomes a dangerous tool in the hands of fools and the damage to businesses and society caused by it over time can be immense.
So, there are good reasons not to leave the matter to chance and prepare for the latter. Here is the good news: There are only a few things you need to look after to put your job applications on the safe side.
Follow these tips for getting your job applications AI-ready
- 1. Focus your job search on networking and try to establish direct contact with the hiring personnel before you send your application documents. Even if you are still asked to submit them through an official channel, you can keep an eye on them actually reaching the right person in time in this case. Here is help with it.
- 2. Provide the information in your CV / résumé with the focus on the type of positions you want to apply for and do not get lost in talking about your life in general. Read this to learn more about it.
- 3. Make sure you present your previous work experience in your CV / résumé in a truly convincing way. This information must be specific and concise and focus on your accomplishments rather than just general activities. Here is how to do it.
- 4. Do not present the information in your CV / résumé in a tabular format. In other words, there should be only one column like in an ordinary book. This way, the AI algorithms won’t get confused by data in the same line belonging to different topics.
- 5. Feature a keyword section at the end of your CV / résumé. Follow these tips for it.
- 6. Whatever you provide should be machine-readable. Do not embed relevant text information in images. Keep in mind that this requirement can concern scans of text documents as well.
If you follow these tips, you won’t have to worry about ATS and AI anymore. 😊