Jess👾

I've been hearing from recruiters and hiring managers that now, basically every cover letter and resumé is "perfect". Good grammar, spelling, everything about the job posting is mentioned, etc. etc. Because you can just use an AI tool to spit out a perfect looking page.

Which of course means that then it's all a test of how good can they straight up lie their way through the interview process.

So if you want to know why hiring has gone even more to shit unless you directly know someone who is hiring, blame AI.

4:45amWeb
Show threadJess👾12h ago
Yes, I know, the people on the receiving end are abusing AI too. But that just means that the classic resumé has become a weird proxy arms race of who can AI bullshit best, and the "honest" candidates are the ones who lose the prisoners dilemma.
Show threadJess👾12h ago
Like now that you can get hundreds of perfect looking resumes, even though there's no plausible way that all of them are actually the perfect candidate, but do you then also spend time on the 90 or 95% candidate who dared to write hers by herself for a position that while she isn't PERFECT for, is closely adjacent and plenty of relevant experience in picking up that last 5%. But when there's 100 others that all say they are exactly what you need...
Show threadEpic Null11h ago

@JessTheUnstill Personally, I think obsession with "best" doesn't help. You need a person to do a job.

Candidates that get hired quickly submit fewer resumes. A smaller hiring window means recieving fewer resumes. Focusing on getting someone "sufficiently qualified" and not playing games with the hiring process means candidates aren't as insentivised to over-polish, and thus are likely to submit less pre-processed resumes.

Pick a "good enough" and stop making it a system that needs gaming!

Show threadMorgan ⚧️11h ago
@JessTheUnstill ohhh so the reason I can't get a job is just that I'm doing the fucking work for it myself? Damn, what happened to work ethic as a quality they want 🤨
Show threadDonald Hobern11h ago

@JessTheUnstill

Definitely this. I've been recruiting software engineers and every cover letter suggests deep familiarity with everything in the position description.

Practical skill tests in the interview (even ones that feel offensively basic) really help but even these could probably be gamed unless the interview is face-to-face.

I see references to expertise with tools and standards that are so niche and so unrelated to the candidate's work experience that it would amaze me if they had really even heard of them.

So, I've decided that from now on I will include references to the most obscure things possible somewhere in the "desirable skills" section of the advert (mixed in with stuff like Kubernetes and S3). Anyone who claims such skills will immediately be suspect.

Show threadEnola Knezevic8h ago
@dhobern @JessTheUnstill Someone I knew didn't have resources to hire HR professionals and wanted to avoid certain personality traits in employees, so I told them to give candidates a questionnaire "how familiar are you with these technologies" listing real technologies, but also Pokemon names, Estonian common nouns, and such.
Show threadJess👾1h ago
Though I'm sure that would in some cases cause otherwise qualified candidates to not apply because they feel that they're not good enough for the position. I suppose if you wrote the requirements as "competency in at least two of: AWS, kubernetes, gcp, python, go, Pikachu, Flareon, Mozambique
@rhelune @dhobern
Show threadarceuthobium11h ago
@JessTheUnstill or, we could blame the people whose incompetence is now being exposed by their inability see anything wrong with an LLM resume / cover letter.
Show threadElectropict10h ago

@JessTheUnstill

As an employer, every time we had a position coming up, we required applicants to fill in a paper form which we could fairly compare them by. We did not ask for "resumes" or "CVs", and binned them unread if sent, as anything like that wasn't our data to hold. (You gets what you asks for.) That was before the emergence of "AI", but proper hiring practices make its involvement irrelevant.

Show threadElectropict10h ago

@JessTheUnstill

(The point may come where an AI can fill out a form by hand in glittery ink, and come round in person to ask about the post beforehand, but I don't think we're quite there yet.)

Show threadD Ingram6h ago
@JessTheUnstill This came up in discussion with my boss. He was very unimpressed with ChatGPT cover letters that were slop generated from the advert and CV. I did a test using the approved conversational AI at work with a job I'd applied for and it was bland. No added value, but read OK. But really it was a waste of electrons. If HR or recruiters think those GenAI letters add value then they all need to get out of recruiting