For job seekers, the use of artificial intelligence has become a double-edged sword. AI can be a barrier for many job seekers. It has led to more competition for jobs, made it more difficult for job seekers to meet face-to-face with hiring decision-makers and has been found to exhibit racial bias.
But it can be a helpful tool when job seekers use it wisely, say career and job search counselors.
“Employers are using it to screen resumes and, in some cases, conduct initial interviews with people,” said Andrew Challenger. He is senior vice president and labor expert at Chicago-based Challenger, Gray & Christmas, which provides outplacement and career services.
“An employer with AI can have 1,000 people do a 15-minute interview to get to one candidate as opposed to before AI you could only do 25 to 30,” he said. “That means there’s more competition from other people around the country.”
Meanwhile, a University of Washington study released last year found that AI-based resume screening tools often favor white and male candidates, over Black candidates and women. The study found that:
- Resumes with white associated male names were favored 100% of the time vs. Black male-associated names.
- Resumes with white-associated names were favored 85.1% of the time vs. 8.6% of the time for resumes with Black-associated names.
- Resumes with male-associated names were preferred 52% of the time vs. women-associated names.
- Resumes with white female-associated names were chosen 48.1% of the time vs. 25.9% for Black female-associated names.
The study used a collection of more than 500 resumes and more than 500 job descriptions across nine occupations and used more than three million comparisons between resumes.
“AI is trained and built on what humans do, and we know that there’s a real amount of prejudice and bias that human beings have,” said Challenger. “That has been in many ways pushed into AI as well.”
But that can be fixed by training the bias out of AI algorithms, he said.
AI poses challenges for job seekers who lack strong digital skills, said Alejandra Sinecio, chief program officer at National Able Network. The nonprofit provides career coaching and job search training at the American Job Center at Chicago Heights-based Prairie State College.
“A lot of our job centers are serving some of the most disenfranchised individuals who have very basic digital literacy skills,” and for them AI is an added complication, she said.
Many job seekers don’t know or understand how AI is being used, said Awilda Gonzalez, the director of Chicagoland Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act Programs for National Able Network.
“We counsel them as job seekers, so they understand this is something that’s out there, and it’s better to utilize it,” said Greg Hirn, career coach for National Able Network at the American Job Center at Prairie State College. “It’s something we should be adapting to and learning from as opposed to just ignoring and hoping it’s going away.”
Job seekers can use AI to help compile their resumes, saving time, said Challenger. They can use it to put together very specific and unique cover letters for individual employers and get much more customized and personal, he said.
“You can upload the job description and it helps pull out key words and buzzwords to highlight,” said Cydney Boyd, career counselor at University Park-based Governors State University. “It can give strategies on how to stand out in your resume and cover letter. It can give you job search strategies and help you research career fairs or industry information and data.
It can also automate job searching tasks. AI algorithms can identify relevant job openings that job seekers might miss through traditional job search methods, Boyd noted. It can provide feedback on one’s interview performance, help with career exploration, spotlight skill gaps and recommend personalized learning paths to help one acquire in-demand skills, she said.
But there are pitfalls jobseekers should avoid.
“It’s very clear to me when I’m looking at a resume written by AI, and that’s not appealing,” Challenger said. “I talk to recruiters that say they get tons of resumes and cover letters that are so obviously written by AI, and they just toss them out immediately.”
He said employers can also run resumes through AI and ask if they were written by AI.
“Really smart job seekers use AI to say, ‘Ask me questions necessary to build a great resume. Give me some suggestions,’” said Challenger. “But you have to do it in your own language.”
AI should be used as “a tool and not a crutch,” Hirn advised.
“Resumes and cover letters generated by AI should be considered a rough draft, a great start-off point,” and personalized from there, he said.
Job seekers should also be aware that AI-generated resumes and cover letters can contain errors. AI is trained to draft resumes and cover letters to be the most optimal and include quantifiable information, explained Boyd.
“But sometimes it throws in fake information,” she said.
So, proofreading remains important.
To help mitigate potential bias from AI screening technology, Boyd recommends students concerned they have names that easily identify their race or ethnicity use an initial on their resumes and cover letters.
Job seekers also should be mindful of privacy issues when using AI, said Boyd and Hirn.
A good rule of thumb is don’t put in information you’re not comfortable with the world learning, said Boyd.
But job seekers should recognize AI in the hiring environment is here to stay. The adoption of generative AI, which creates new content based on patterns learned from large datasets, is rapidly increasing in human resource settings. The share of human resources leaders who are actively planning or already deploying GenAI has spiked from 19% in June 2023 to 61% in January 2025, according to Gartner, a research and advisory company.
But for job seekers, longstanding tried and true job search strategies remain important and should be a priority, career and job search experts advise. They note many jobs continue to be filled by referrals.
“You can use AI to decrease time that you are doing writing to every single person and sending emails,” said Challenger. “Use it for that so you can use time to try to meet people.”
“It really comes down to the human touch, the human element,” said Hirn. “It’s not just about what we do with AI. We still very much have to be boots on the ground, networking and making those personal connections with people.”
Francine Knowles at Fknowles.writer@gmail.com is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.
