Speak to recruiters about what makes their job truly worthwhile, and many talk about the satisfaction of knowing they have paired the right candidate with the right job, leaving everyone happy.
But in the AI era, finding that perfect connection is proving challenging. Against the backdrop of a cooling labour market, the ease of making applications — from putting together a CV to optimising a cover letter to meet specific criteria — has fuelled what Daniel Chait, chief executive of hiring platform Greenhouse, calls an “AI doom loop”.
Companies are being inundated with applications — recent research from Greenhouse found applications per job have more than doubled since 2022 — but are constrained in their ability to distinguish between high-quality candidates and AI slop. “There’s less and less signal,” he says.
Candidates, meanwhile, face the challenge of trying to tailor their applications to meet the (often opaque) requirements of the AI-driven filtering tools being used by the recruiters.
Despite the difficulties, recruiters say the use of AI has several advantages. Bryan Ackermann, head of AI strategy at recruitment firm Korn Ferry, says automating the mechanics of recruitment is essential to “clear the decks for those human moments” — when the recruiter lands on the most promising candidate. However he adds that “we are not believers that AI is going to take [the whole process] from first touch to the first day”.
